Does federal law make the grade?: MANATEE SCHOOLS STRUGGLE TO COMPLY WITH NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.

Byline: Sylvia Lim

Jan. 7--MANATEE -- Area schools facing sanctions hoping for better way to measure their student progress

First in an occasional series on the No Child Left Behind Act

Accountability.

That was what the Bush administration demanded from the nation's schools when it passed No Child Left Behind in 2002.

Seeking to close the achievement gap between white and minority students, the expansive legislation set a mandate to have all children in the United States proficient in reading and math by 2014. To get there, every public school in the country is expected to make adequate progress every year.

Several schools in Manatee County are struggling -- and already face some stiff penalties. Samoset and Wakeland elementary schools have been federally ordered to reorganize; four schools have been ordered to provide after-school tutoring services; two others are being watched closely.

But many educators dispute the ways federal and state governments measure academic achievement. Such measurements, they argue, do not really reflect any progress struggling students are making.

Whether No Child Left Behind will help close the local achievement gap remains to be seen. But schools alone cannot cure social problems such as broken homes or poverty, teachers say.

And, as the law comes up for reauthorization before the just-convened Congress, many local educators hope lawmakers will question its fairness and consider compromises.

School grades, AYP

Assistant Superintendent Lynette Edwards recalls the year Wakeland Elementary was sanctioned by the federal government.

The news came on the same day the school learned it had pulled its grade up from an F to a C.

"On the same day we congratulate them . . . we thrust them into the whole arena of the sanction," Edwards said. "Something about that makes me say, 'Hey let's take a better look at this.'"

The state of Florida and…