The Montgomery Advertiser

Editorial / September 9, 2004

In horseshoes, you still get points for near misses. But when it comes to notifying parents that their child's school is under performing in time for the child to move to another school, state and local school officials should get no credit for coming close.

For the second year, Alabama failed to meet a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind law to notify parents if their children were at an under performing school in time to transfer the children prior to the first day of classes. Alabama did not release NCLB assessment results until after school began at more than half of the state's public schools.

Theoretically, the violation could result in the loss of large amounts of federal funds. But in reality, the U.S. Department of Education probably will give Alabama and the other states that missed the deadline another chance.

But that's little consolation to parents who might have moved their children if they had known in time that they were eligible to move.

In Montgomery County, local school officials tried to anticipate which schools would not meet the NCLB standards, so they were able to notify parents whose children were at several schools prior to getting the official results from the state. But there were still several surprises among the 13 schools that under performed here, and parents of children at those schools were not notified their children were eligible to move until the second week of school.

State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton said the state missed the deadline by four days, an improvement over last year's 16 days. "I know we are making progress. Our goal is to get the information out as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure that what we are getting out is accurate."

But this is one instance when parents have a right to expect both timeliness and accuracy.

Morton also was quoted as saying the state's goal "is to release the data by the first day of school." But frankly, while that might meet the letter of the federal law, it still would be unfair to parents and children. In order to make the transition from an under performing school, they need to know in time at the very least several days before school starts.

Not many parents choose to move their children from troubled schools even when they are informed in time. The NCLB requires adequate notification, so state and local school officials have to find a way to make it work.