Another month, another change.

Speaking up hasn't hurt educators lately. The Bush administration is easing restrictions on No Child Left Behind yet again, the fourth change in four months.

This time, the change reduces the number of students a school may test without shirking the law. The issue was atop a pile of complaints from educators, who say the required 95 percent participation rate on math and reading tests to determine adequate yearly progress every year was too strict.

The change allows more leeway over two years. If schools average a 95 percent testing participation rate among students over two or three years, they will meet the law. For example, if a school tests 94 percent of students one year, it would still be within the law if 96 percent of students tested the year before. Schools also have leeway for students who miss tests based on a medical emergencies, such as from a car accident.

If schools accept federal poverty aid and if they don't meet the required goals in the lave at least two straight years they can still face sanctions. Districts must offer students a chance to transfer from a low-performing school to a better-performing school. The school could even risk state takeover after two years of low performance.

The change in the law is among several recently. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has changed the requirements for special education students twice since December. The law had allowed a half percentage of special education children with the most severe cognitive disabilities to take an alternative test but has since allowed up to 1 percent of such students to take the alternate. Paige is also allowing districts to seek waivers to allow more than 1 percent of the population to take an alternative test.

Vocal Minority

Despite problems with the No Child Left Behind act, some educators are choosing to look at the bright side of the law.

"This does provide for greater accountability for subgroups," says Robert Henry, superintendent of schools in Hartford Conn. "Over years, school systems have escaped scrutiny because a number of students have pulled the entire district forward" without looking at other populations, such as minority and/or poor students, who might have slipped through the cracks, he says.

The School District of Philadelphia CEO Paul Vallas also praises the law, despite the lack of funding. "While we can't shortchange our children by failing to fund reforms, neither can we hold their futures hostage by waiting for a never-ending funding debate to resolve itself," he told the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health, Human Services and Education in March. "Our philosophy is about sending all available dollars into the classroom. We will continue to use the tools provided us under the ... act to accomplish this and we will not allow excuses to get in the way of achievement."

Henry is quick to add the law needs serious revisions, particularly in funding and because test scores are the sole gauge of whether or not a school is improving or students are succeeding. He says he believes test scores reveal only some successes.

But unlike many educators. Vallas has a plan that does not make excuses and includes steps to achieve the goals in No Child. The Philadelphia district formed school-by-school partnerships with universities, museums and companies to assist the lowest performing schools. The district also started a mandatory six-week summer school academic program in reading and math for students in grades 3-10 not meeting promotion requirements or performing below grade level.

The district also implemented a corrective action plan for schools not making adequate yearly progress. Forty-nine failing schools in Philadelphia were restructured with private and charter school management and 22 high schools have started ninth-grade academics designed to close the achievement gaps for students below grade level in reading and math.

Vallas' cooperation comes on the heels of a judge approving a three-year plan for the district following a 33-year-old desegregation lawsuit. In March, a judge praised Vallas for creating a plan that, in part, strives to close the achievement gap with more rigorous and standardized curricula, towering class sizes and cracking down on unruly student behavior.