MIAMI - In its initial review of No Child Left Behind

waiver requests, the U.S. Education Department highlighted a

similar weakness in nearly every application: States did not do

enough to ensure schools would be held accountable for the

performance of all students.

The Obama administration praised the states for their high

academic standards. But nearly every application was criticized for

being loose about setting high goals and, when necessary,

interventions for all student groups - including minorities, the

disabled and low-income - or for failing to create sufficient

incentives to close the achievement gap.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools where even one group of

students falls behind are considered out of compliance and subject

to interventions. The law has been championed for helping shed

light on education inequalities, but most now agree it is due for

change.

Indiana's proposal to opt out of the federal law's strictest

requirements was criticized by the Education Department for its

"inattention" to certain groups, like students still learning the

English language. New Mexico's plan, a panel of peer reviewers

noted, did not include accountability and interventions for student

subgroups based on factors like achievement and graduation rates.

In Florida, the department expressed concern that the performance

of some groups of students could go overlooked.

The concerns were outlined in letters sent last December by the

administration to the 11 states that have applied for a waiver.

Since then, state and federal officials have been talking about how

to address the concerns; some states have already agreed to

changes.

The letters were obtained by The Associated Press for all of the

states except Tennessee and Kentucky, which declined to provide

them until an announcement is made on whether a waiver is granted.

The Education Department has previously said it expected to notify

states by mid-January.

"Our priority is protecting children and maintaining a high bar

even as we give states more flexibility to get more resources to

the children most in need, even if that means the process takes a

little longer than we anticipated," said Daren Briscoe, a

department spokesman.

Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, said

federal officials are in a challenging spot.

"The current law means that each group of kids, whether they

are children with a disability, or African-American, or poor kids,

have attention paid to them, because the schools are accountable

for each and every group," said Jennings. "But what the states

are asking is that they all be lumped together."

The Bush-era law is aimed at making sure 100 percent of students

reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014, a goal states are

far from achieving. As that year draws closer, more and more

schools are expected to fall out of compliance, subjecting them to

penalties that range from after-school tutoring to closure.

While there is bipartisan agreement the 2002 law needs to be

fixed, Congress has not passed a comprehensive reform. President

Barack Obama announced in September that states could apply for

waivers and scrap the proficiency requirement if they met

conditions designed to better prepare and test students.

The 11 states that applied for the first round of waivers were

Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma,

Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico and Tennessee.

Many more states are expected to request waivers in the second

round - meaning all eyes will be on the first approvals.

The Center on Education Policy analyzed all the waiver requests

and found that in nine of the 11 states, almost all decisions on

penalties and interventions would be based on the performance of

two groups: all students and a "disadvantaged" group that would

replace the current system of separate categories of students

according to race, ethnicity, income, disability and English

language proficiency.

Those separate categories are at the heart of what No Child Left

Behind aimed to correct - vast achievement gaps between white,

black and Hispanic students, between the affluent and low-income -

and what most agree is the problem with the law: If any one of

these groups of students does not meet the state's annual

benchmarks for proficiency in reading and math, the school is

labeled as "failing."

In a letter sent Jan. 17, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep.

George Miller, D-Calif., urged Education Secretary Arne Duncan to

require strong accountability measures and ensure civil rights and

educational equity gains under No Child Left Behind are not lost.

"We fear that putting students with disabilities, English

language learners and minority students into one 'super subgroup'

will mask the individual needs of these distinct student

subgroups," they said.

In the feedback provided to states by a panel of peer reviewers

in December, many states were praised for plans to institute

college and career-ready standards and develop teacher evaluation

systems that take into account student growth - two hallmarks of

the Obama administration's education policy. The panel's concerns

varied, but meeting the needs of all groups of students was one

consistent theme.

In New Mexico, for example, the U.S. Education Department

expressed concern about a lack of incentives to close achievement

gaps and hold schools accountable for the performance of all

students. In a follow-up letter sent late in January, subgroup

accountability was still an area of concern.

Hanna Skandera, secretary designate for the New Mexico Public

Education Department, said the state's original plan did include

breaking down data on student performance by subgroup on each

school's report card. But after conversations with the U.S.

Education Department, schools will be adding information on whether

they are on track for progress and growth in meeting annual

targets. If a group falls behind, schools will be subject to

intervention measures.

"We had high level reporting," Skandera said. "Now we're

going to provide another layer so everything is crystal clear to

parents across the state."

Minnesota's initial feedback included concern about "the lack

of incentives to improve achievement for all groups of students and

narrow achievement gap between subgroups." Sam Kramer, federal

education policy specialist for the Minnesota Department of

Education, said most of that criticism was focused on the state's

graduation rate. In its initial submission, the state did not take

into account the graduation rate of different subgroups in its

annual targets.

After receiving the letter, the state switched to a system that

will take into account how subgroups of students did in meeting

those graduation targets.

Kramer said he thinks Minnesota will be better able to meet the

needs of disadvantaged groups of students under the new system.

"No Child Left Behind was very good at diagnosing the

problem," Kramer said. "It was very good at shining a light on

the differences between subgroups."

It was less effective, he said, at offering successful ways to

help improve.

"We are going to be able to go in and be flexible and reactive

to the specific needs of those subgroups," Kramer said.

Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University,

said the struggle by school districts to lift the performance of

different groups of students is a signal of a deeper problem that

won't be solved by waivers.

"We need to make sure the districts and schools feel some

pressure to make sure that all the students they are responsible

for are being educated," he said. "However, they need to focus on

different kinds of evidence, and not merely performance on a

standardized test. That's where they don't get it."