Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced a differentiated school accountability pilot program yesterday.  But Ed Week's David Hoff threw a flag, noting that the announcement was delivered in Minnesota, a state that is ineligible for the pilot program.

(Feel like an instant replay?  On Secretary Spellings' 2005 trip to Florida, she praised Robles Elementary School for, as St. Petersburg Times reporter Ron Matus put it, "ris[ing] above poverty and meet[ing] No Child's definition of success."  Matus threw the flag back then, observing that Robles hadn't made No Child Left Behind's adequate yearly progress requirement.  Oops.)

AFT's Executive VP Toni Cortese threw another flag on yesterday's announcement, saying it was a false start:

This pilot program would not even begin to address the major problems with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

The proposal does nothing to fix NCLB’s adequate yearly progress formula, a poor measure of school quality. Nor does it change NCLB’s wrong-headed approach—providing punishment instead of help—to schools and students that are struggling.

NCLB is in need of a dramatic overhaul and cannot be patched up with Band-Aids and pilot programs.

But wait, there's more.  Eduflack also called a penalty, saying the Department didn't spin the announcement the right way (Eight Dollar Words).

You know it's a bad game when even your cheerleaders get flagged.

(Photo by Flickr user Michael (mx5tx) used under a Creative Commons license.)