All but one school in and around Freeborn County made the grade Monday, as the Minnesota Department of Education released a list of 259 schools that did not meet adequate yearly progress.

Albert Lea, Glenville-Emmons, Alden-Conger and United South Central school districts made the grade, although New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva did not, according to the preliminary list, which will be finalized in a month after data are corrected. According to the list, not enough students in the NRHEG district took the test that measured the school’s performance.

Superintendent Richard Lorenz of NRHEG said the data are wrong, and plans on speaking to the MDE to correct the matter. He said his school’s students did exceptionally well.

The list is considered preliminary because districts can appeal the designation before the final roll is released Aug. 7. Some schools will be stricken and others added as new information becomes available and other data are corrected.

The list is shorter than the MDE estimated this spring, with a total of 259 schools, instead of an estimated 426.

The list centers around a controversial federal law called No Child Left Behind, which requires schools to meet certain criteria for nine &uot;cells,&uot; or groups, like white students, hispanic students and mentally retarded students. Depending on the school level, the criteria include proficiency, attendance or graduation. Depending on how many times a school makes the list, it could be required to pay for busing students to other schools and private tutors.

Many school experts and officials have called the law unreasonable and question its ability to measure progress fairly. Many believe that the law will be more of a hindrance than a help and that more, not fewer, schools will join the list of underperforming schools as the years go on.

Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke said the smaller-than-expected amount of schools shows that schools are trying to improve. &uot;Accountability is working, because these principals are making sure that their schools don’t make the list,&uot; she said.

Bill Walsh, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education, said two policy changes were made since the estimate was anounced. Some schools didn’t make the list because they are improving, although not at the level they should; and because when the estimate was made, cells had to have 20 students for scores to apply, now they need 40 students.

Bob Lowe, an associate director of the Minnesota School Boards Association, said he was surprised by the number of schools listed because of low participation on the test. &uot;(Schools) are being judged for things that can’t be tested. Those are parental responsibilties.&uot;

He said that a school may be acheiving well academically, but it only takes five students out of 100 to be absent for a school to be put on the list. &uot;Schools want to be held accountable but they want to be held accountable for the right criteria,&uot; he said.

Walsh said the participation criterion is meant to keep schools from manipulating data by testing on a day when many students will be absent.

David Prescott, superintendent of Albert Lea schools, asked &uot;Is that fair to be sending kids from one building to another because of participation?&uot; His district was one of the few schools in the Big Nine conference not to make the list. He said parents can be proud at how well their students did. But he said an Albert Lea school could have been put on the list as unfairly as he said some schools probably were.

He said that although accountability is important, the way the law is being interepreted is unreasonable. For example, mentally retarded elementary school students and students with no English skills are expected to meet the same levels as English-speaking students.

&uot;We believe all students will achieve and improve, and that’s been our goal, but they’ll achieve and improve at different rates, and No Child Left Behind doesn’t consider those different rates,&uot; he said. He worried that parents would pull their kids out of perfectly fine schools simply because of the listing. He said it could disrupt a child’s education, and take away vital funds that could be used for education instead of busing.

Mark Davison, Director of the Office of Accountability at the University of Minnesota, said parents should not rest easy if their kid is in a school not on the list. As the criteria get more stringent, more schools will make the list, he said. And as more grade levels are included in assessments, the cell numbers will increase and thereby be counted, causing more opportunities for low test scores.