Earlier this summer, area school districts from Moorhead to Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton to Hawley got word that their math and reading state assessment scores, already comfortably above state averages, rose slightly this year.

But school officials had a narrow window to celebrate.

Weeks later, all three districts and several others in the area found out they had not met annual progress requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Modest test gains didnt keep pace with rising requirements as states strive to meet the laws goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014. Progress targets for groups such as special education students and racial minorities, in particular, tripped up most area districts.

The state Education Department released Adequate Yearly Progress data this week.

Its disappointing, said Moorhead Superintendent Lynne Kovash of the districts failure to make AYP. I just dont want to see all the work weve done and the progress weve made erased by AYP results.

Across the state, the number of districts making AYP fell dramatically. For the first time, Minnesota districts that failed to meet progress targets outnumbered those that did, 241 to 169. The results lent new urgency to concerns that schools will start failing to meet the laws requirements en masse as 2014 approaches.

There were some area success stories in 2008 AYP results. Lake Park-Audubon and Breckenridge  two districts that didnt make AYP last year because of their special education students test performance  made the list of compliant districts this year. In Moorhead, the Red River Area Learning Center, where more than 70 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, made AYP, one of few state alternative schools that did.

But districts such as Moorhead and Hawley, which made AYP last year, fell short of state improvement requirements. In Moorhead, American Indian, special education and limited English proficiency students didnt meet reading requirements; American Indian and limited English proficiency students also fell short in math.

Schools and districts can only make AYP if each of eight subgroups represented by 40 or more students meets standards.

Because Moorheads Robert Asp and Ellen Hopkins elementary schools havent made AYP for two consecutive years, the district needs to provide transportation to its Reinertsen Elementary for students whose parents wish to transfer. Sanctions districts can face if they consistently miss AYP targets include offering free tutoring.

Hawley Superintendent Phil Jensen said the district missed its special education math target by a hair: It was probably a matter of one incorrect question by one student. Hawley tests 28 students with disabilities in high school math.

D-G-F, which failed to meet AYP in special education each year since No Child Left Behind went into effect, succeeded in hitting targets for that group. But this time its Hispanic students, 8 percent of the student body, fell short in reading and math.

To Mary Cecconni of the states Parents United advocacy group, the law, which aims to close the achievement gaps that plague minority students, can backfire: How long is it before we start pointing fingers at these groups, and how long before we start trying to push them out of our schools?

Parents United, long critical of No Child Left Behind, has also faulted the law for comparing, say, todays third-graders to last years instead of measuring students growth over time.

And, Cecconi said, the growing list of does-not-make-AYP districts suggests that the goal of universal proficiency by 2014, though laudable, is elusive: With the existing system, 100 percent of districts wont be making AYP by 2014.

When Jerry Tollitson suffered a fatal massive heart attack in December 1985 at the age of 46, Larry Atkins was one of the friends who comforted Gail Tollitson at the hospital.

More than two decades later, Atkins faces 78 felony charges and is accused of stealing $5 million from investors, including Tollitson.

I thought he was my friend, too, Tollitson said Tuesday. The 66-year-old disabled Fargo woman said shes still in shock. I still dont want to believe that he could screw people over like that.

Atkins is accused of using a Ponzi scheme that involved promising high returns and taking money from new investors to pay off the interest and principal payments to the initial investors.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraq is raking in more money from oil exports than it is spending, amassing a projected four-year budget surplus of up to $80 billion, U.S. auditors reported Tuesday.
Oil accounted for 94 percent of the Iraq's revenue from 2005 to 2007, a U.S. report says.

Oil accounted for 94 percent of the Iraq's revenue from 2005 to 2007, a U.S. report says.


Leading members of Congress, noting that Washington is paying for reconstruction in Iraq, expressed outrage at the assessment. One called the findings "inexcusable."

"We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4-a-gallon gas prices in the U.S.," said Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We should require that U.S. taxpayers be reimbursed for the cost of large projects."

Baghdad had a $29 billion budget surplus between 2005 to 2007. With the price of crude roughly doubling in the past year, Iraq's surplus for 2008 is expected to run between $38 billion and $50 billion, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The United States has put about $48 billion toward reconstruction since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, auditors reported. About $23 billion of that was spent on the oil and electricity industries, water systems and security.

Iraq spent $3.9 billion on those sectors from 2005 through April 2008, according to the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. The ongoing fighting there, a shortage of trained staff and weak controls have made it difficult for the Iraqi government to spend its surplus on needed projects, the agency's report concluded.

Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has been an outspoken critic of the slow progress of reconstruction and an advocate of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. His criticism Tuesday was echoed by Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican who is the former chairman and now a leading member of Levin's committee.


"Despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue in the past five years, U.S. taxpayer money has been the overwhelming source of Iraq reconstruction funds," Warner said in a joint statement with Levin. "It is time for the sovereign government of Iraq, using its revenues, expenditures and surpluses, to fully assume the responsibility to provide essential services and improve the quality of life for the Iraqi people."

In its written response to the audit report, the Treasury Department said U.S. officials are working with Iraqis to address the issue, "and we believe progress is being made."

"The report shows Iraq's budget surplus is likely to grow significantly over the course of 2008, but it is equally important to realize that spending in Iraq is also increasing," Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Andy Baukol wrote to the GAO.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government submitted a $22 billion supplemental budget to the Iraqi parliament in July, including $8 billion in proposed capital expenditures, Baukol wrote.

The issue raised the hackles of several members of Congress earlier this year -- particularly because Bush administration officials said on the eve of the war that Iraqi oil money would pay for reconstruction.

In 2003, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the House Appropriations Committee: "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said Tuesday's report "is going to make a lot of American families very angry."

"The record gas prices they are paying have turned into an economic windfall for Iraq, but the Iraqi government isn't spending the money on rebuilding," said Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Levin spokeswoman Tara Andringa said the senator hopes to tighten rules governing U.S. expenditures on Iraqi reconstruction efforts in the next Pentagon authorization bill.

The Iraqi surplus has piled up even though the country's oil production has only recently matched prewar levels, according to the Brookings Institution's latest Iraq Index.

The country spent about 80 percent of its $29 billion operating budget in 2007, including public services and salaries, but only 28 percent of its $12 billion investment budget, the GAO found.

The export of crude oil accounted for 94 percent of Iraq's revenues from 2005 to 2007, the GAO reported.