Minnesota’s Department of Education released 2008 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results for the state’s 1,920 school districts last week. The news wasn’t good.

Mora, Ogilvie, Braham, Cambridge, Pine City and Milaca school districts - along with 931 others - all missed cummulative math and reading proficiency goals set by the federal government. All except for Cambridge had met their goals in 2007.

A key component of the federal government’s No Child Left Behind Act, AYP measures the yearly math and reading proficiency of students within a respective school district. Failing to reach goals two years in a row begins a penalty process that grows in severity with each subsequent year of insufficient progress - a process which eventually ends with the state restructuring the district if they fail to meet target proficiency levels five years running.