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SPEAKER 1: Yes it is.

SPEAKER 2: Did you remember the E?

SPEAKER 1: I did.

SPEAKER 2: Yes.

TIM PUGMIRE: Students in Bob Hainlen's fifth grade class at Edinbrook Elementary School in Brooklyn Park are wrapping up their morning classroom work and getting ready for lunch. There are nearly 900 students in kindergarten through sixth grade at the middle class suburban school, which is located in the Osseo School District. Fifth grader Elizabeth McElligott has attended Edinbrook since kindergarten.

ELIZABETH MCELLIGOTT: It's a really good school, and everyone here is really nice and stuff. And--

SPEAKER 3: How are you going to get [INAUDIBLE]?

ELIZABETH MCELLIGOTT: --it's a really good school.

TIM PUGMIRE: Test scores offer a similarly positive view of Edinbrook. Principal Dan Wald says the school as a whole has performed consistently well on standardized tests.

DAN WALD: We've scored above the district, the state, and national averages throughout the five years that I've been the principal at Edinbrook. And so we work hard. We have ambitious school improvement plans each year and feel we are working hard to meet the needs of each student.

TIM PUGMIRE: Despite those successes, Wald knows his school could soon land on a list of underachievers. The Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind, requires all schools and students to make adequate yearly progress toward state standards. Test scores will be broken down into subgroups, including disabled, economically disadvantaged, racial or ethnic minority groups, and limited English proficiency. Lack of progress in any one group will place a school on the list.

INGER HANSON: Is it an iron? EO, is this an iron?

STUDENTS: No.

INGER HANSON: What is this?

TIM PUGMIRE: Edinbrook teacher Inger Hanson plays a vocabulary game with students in her English language learner class. Her students speak Arabic, Chinese, Hmong, Russian, and Vietnamese at home and have a wide range of academic abilities. Hanson says it's unrealistic to expect all ELL students to perform at their grade level within two or three years.

INGER HANSON: Some can do it, but many will fall short of that. And then the community will look at the ELL program and these children as the ones that are pulling it down.

TIM PUGMIRE: Edinbrook won't be alone. Osseo Superintendent Chris Richardson says he expects half of the district's 19 elementary schools and at least one junior high to be on the needs improvement list within two years.

CHRIS RICHARDSON: It will cause a lot of consternation, a lot of concern by parents about what's going on in this building and what does this mean.

TIM PUGMIRE: What it means for six Osseo schools that receive federal money for low-income students known as Title I funds is a series of corrective actions aimed at improving student achievement. After two years on the list, schools must allow parents to move their children to higher-performing schools in the district. Tutors are required in year three.

Persistently failing schools could ultimately face state takeovers. Edinbrook is not a Title I school, but it could still wind up on the list. Richardson says that alone will have a big negative impact.

CHRIS RICHARDSON: We have a serious morale problem for staff because we'll have unrealistic goals they can't meet. We have a serious issue in terms of public confidence because suddenly we're naming schools that no one were thinking were having any struggle as being needs improvement.

TIM PUGMIRE: The identification of underperforming schools is not new. The previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act required states to list Title I schools with low test scores and provide them additional help. Minnesota's list included 59 schools last year. All but 12 were in Minneapolis or Saint Paul. State education officials removed 17 schools from the list last year due to improved performance.

MINA KRENZ: The molasses is not tilting over.

LESLIE FERSTER: Yeah, that's very good.

TIM PUGMIRE: Bryn Mawr Elementary in Minneapolis worked its way off the list by improving test scores on the Third Grade Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in reading. Teacher Leslie Ferster is working with her 23 third-grade students who will take the test this spring on finding the main idea and supporting details in a story. Mina Krenz is already ahead of her classmates on the assignment.

MINA KRENZ: We're working on the Molasses Flood. And there's three books that we can choose from for disasters. And we can write about them on this piece of paper and draw a picture.

TIM PUGMIRE: Teachers at Bryn Mawr say they rallied together to raise student test scores. Leslie Ferster says she's part of a dedicated teaching staff that didn't appreciate the underachieving label.

LESLIE FERSTER: It can be demoralizing when we all work really hard and we know that we really have high standards for our kids and then just have this label put on us that you're not making it.

TIM PUGMIRE: Bryn Mawr Principal Barbara Braaten says her school focused its energy on improving reading skills. She says staff provided more individual instruction to students who had fallen behind and those learning to speak English. 4 out of 10 students at the school are non-English speakers.

The old version of the list was based on school's average test scores. The new one will include the scores of all subgroups. Braaten says it will be difficult to avoid the label of underperforming school.

BARBARA BRAATEN: If you have a small number of students of any ethnic background or any language background or any disability background, or you have a particular kind of behavior or climate in your school, all those things can tip the balance. Just one of them has to go a little bit out of balance, and you will be back on the list.

TIM PUGMIRE: State and federal officials say the reporting of test information under No Child Left Behind is intended to help close the achievement gap between students of different groups. African-American students, for example, should perform as well as their white classmates. State Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke says breaking down the test data will focus attention on forgotten children.

CHERI PIERSON YECKE: Oftentimes, poor performance by certain groups are really masked and hidden when you only report the school level assessment data. And so under No Child Left Behind, these other layers are going to be revealed.

TIM PUGMIRE: Many educators remain troubled, however, by the law's requirement that all students must perform at a proficient level under their state standards within 12 years, and all students means all students. Mark Davison, Director of the University of Minnesota's Office of Educational Accountability says he doesn't expect schools to meet such a difficult standard.

MARK DAVISON: This idea of all kids proficient 100% of the kids taking the regular assessments, that's kind of an unforgiving standard. It allows no room for error. And schools are like any institutions. They're not as successful as they would like to be with every child.

TIM PUGMIRE: Davison says most Minnesota schools will be considered as underperforming unless Congress adjusts the federal law or state officials lower their test score bar. Minnesota must submit its final compliance plan to the US Department of Education by May 1. I'm Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio.