It can be done: Nebraska schools skip mandatory tests

Yes that does mean the whole state.

Students aren't pushed to do well on 50-minute tests that will determine whether their teachers and their schools are considered successful — the kind of pressure faced across the nation as children take their states' standardized achievement tests.

With criticism mounting over implementation of the federal accountability law and states scrambling to overhaul their testing systems to comply, Nebraska alone has succeeded in saying no to mandatory statewide tests.

The state has persuaded federal education officials to approve the nation's most unorthodox assessment system, which allows school districts to use portfolios to measure student progress.

The downside:

Nebraska's system is far from perfect; it is expensive, it is time-consuming for teachers and it makes comparisons among districts difficult.