Spellings called the changes "policy bulldozers."
"While I will continue working with legislators to renew this law, I also realize that students and teachers and schools need help now," she said.
Now, states calculate graduation rates a number of ways, making comparisons difficult. In Utah, 83 percent of 12th-graders graduated in 2005-2006, the most recent school year for which data is available.
State Associate Superintendent Judy Park said she doesn't yet know whether the new formula will mean different graduation rate figures for Utah, but she said it's basically similar to the formula the state now uses.
Utah recently started calculating its graduation rate by dividing the number of students who start high school together in 10th grade by the number of graduates and dropouts. The change would require all states to calculate graduation rates by dividing the number of students who graduate high school in a standard number of years with a regular high school diploma by the number who started high school four years earlier, adjusting for students who transferred.
Spellings also called for changes in the way schools that miss testing goals inform parents about their options. When a school that accepts federal dollars for serving low-income areas fails to meet testing goals two years in a row, the school must offer to bus students to better-performing schools. If a school fails to meet testing goals for three years, it must offer students outside tutoring.
Only an estimated 15 percent of eligible students nationwide take advantage of the tutoring, and even fewer opt to change schools, she said.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, parents sometimes aren't told until after the beginning of the school year that they can send their children to other schools. In Utah, for example, parents often don't know they can send their children to different schools until after the school year begins because the state doesn't release testing results until September.
The proposed changes would require school districts to inform parents about the school choice option no later than 14 days before the start of the school year. Park said that would be a problem for Utah. The state can't get testing results out any earlier partly because of its year-round schools, she said.
Under the proposed changes, districts would also have to notify parents of children eligible for tutoring about the opportunity in a way that highlights the benefits of tutoring.
The proposed changes would require districts to prove to the state that, essentially, they did everything in their power to notify and allow students to participate in school choice or tutoring before using federal money allocated for those purposes for other things. If they can't prove it, they'll have to return the money.
"This whole thing with No Child Left Behind is underfunded anyway," Park said. "The idea you'd have to send some of the money back I think is kind of crazy."
Several Utah principals said they are trying their best to get the word out about parents' options when schools fail to meet testing goals.
Ogden's Dee Elementary School Principal Linda Brown said she sent notices to parents offering tutoring and school choice in both English and Spanish, but like other Utah schools, Dee sent the notices after school started because of the state's timeline for releasing data. Plus, all the tutoring providers are in Salt Lake City - too far for many Ogden parents, Brown said.
To help, the school offers after-school tutoring to its students, all of whom come from low-income families. Brown said only a few students have chosen to go to other schools this year.
Salt Lake City's Riley Elementary School Principal Bobbie Kirby also said only a few children have left her school. She sent parents notices about school choice in several languages. The school also worked with community groups, held an assembly for parents with an interpreter and talked with parents as they worked on student education plans to make sure they understood their options.
"Once parents have settled into a school, it's hard for them," Kirby said. "They don't want to uproot their students."
Kirby said she is not opposed to Spellings changing the law, as long as the changes are reasonable. She would like to see the law focus more on individual student growth and not penalize entire schools when just one group of students misses testing goals.
Spellings has launched several programs to address those issues, but Utah, so far, is not participating in them for various reasons.
The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed changes.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' proposed changes to the education law include:
* Requiring states and districts to report results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress alongside state test results on public report cards.
* Requiring states to set graduation rate goals and define how schools and districts may demonstrate substantial progress toward those goals. Schools and districts would then be held accountable to meet those goals or improve substantially.
* Requiring states, schools and districts to be held accountable for graduation rates broken down by ethnic, ability and income groups.
* Requiring some schools that fail to meet testing goals for six years to restructure the schools in a rigorous way that addresses the reasons the school failed to meet goals. Replacing only the principal wouldn't be enough.
* Requiring districts that haven't met federal goals for certain numbers of years to include on their Web sites how many students were eligible for and participated in tutoring and public school choice, a list of tutoring providers and a list of schools to which students may transfer.
* Allowing schools that fail to meet goals to count the cost of informing parents about their options toward federal spending requirements.
