The latest batch of states seeking relief under the No Child Left Behind Act dodge pitfalls that tripped up the first round of applicants. In the latest round of applications for waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act, states have learned lessons from their predecessors and dodged pitfalls that triggered some big revisions from first-round states. The second-round group of 26 states, plus the District of Columbia, did a better job explaining how they will help English-learners and special education students succeed. And they are not straying as far from the 2002 law's original emphasis on holding schools accountable for the performance of small groups of students deemed at risk. Yet the new applicants still have a lot of work to do to create new and more sophisticated accountability systems, an "Education Week" analysis of their applications suggests. The Education Department already has approved waivers for 11 first-round states that give them considerable flexibility to design and implement their own vastly different and complex accountability systems. The department is expected to make its decisions for the second round later this spring; in the first round, all states that applied were awarded the flexibility. With the 27 new applications in the pipeline, and five more states expected to apply in September in the third round, the vast majority of states will likely end up ditching the law's adequate yearly progress yardstick by year's end, forgoing universal consequences such as tutoring and public school choice, and giving up on the out-of-reach goal that all students should be proficient in reading and math by 2014.