PORTLAND (AP) - Oregon is one of just eight states still in the running to pilot a new way of measuring student progress under No Child Left Behind, the federal education law that requires schools to get all students up to grade level on reading and math tests by 2014.

Twenty states had petitioned the U.S. Department of Education for the chance to be testing grounds for the program, but only eight have been chosen for further review, the education department announced late last week.

Also making the cut were Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Under the current law, schools are expected to show year-to-year improvement in test scores. If increasing percentages of all groups of students - from all different backgrounds - don't make the required progress, an entire school can be publicly reported as “needing improvement,” and may face fiscal consequences.

Under the pilot program, however, schools would also be allowed to chart how individual students are doing on standardized tests from one year to the next, and receive credit for students making substantial progress.

Education officials in Oregon have said such a method - formally called a “growth model” - offers a more precise way to measure how students are doing, and would give credit to schools where students are making big gains, even if they haven't reached the annual grade-level goals of No Child Left Behind.

State officials are relieved to have made it over the first hurdle, said Ed Dennis, chief of staff to Oregon Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo. But he cautioned that there's no guarantee that all eight states will make the final cut.

The next step calls for a panel of experts to screen the proposals submitted by each of the remaining states. The experts will then make their recommendations to U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who is expected to issue her final decision by May.

Oregon and the federal government have had their differences over No Child Left Behind, with Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski at one stage musing publicly over whether to join a national teachers' union lawsuit against the law. But the state has lately refrained from public criticism of the law, which some have called both underfunded and unrealistic in its goals. Dennis said that could be one reason the state's bid to pilot the growth model seems to have legs.

“There's been no empty saber rattling or threats about No Child Left Behind,” he said. “Every time we have challenged an aspect of the law, we have meant it and been diligent about it. We haven't tried to score cheap political points about the law.”

Another key factor for Oregon, state officials have said, has been the development of a data system that allows the state to track individual students from third grade on up, even if they move between schools in the state.

That system still needs work, though, Dennis said, and the state will need to show that it can be fully operational if their application is to succeed.