Feds Seek Dismissal Of State’s Challenge To ‘No Child’ Law

By Andrew Miga

Associated Press

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Justice Department has accused Connecticut officials of accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from Washington while trying to escape obligations tied to the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The Justice Department on December 2 asked a federal court to dismiss Connecticut’s lawsuit against the act, arguing that Connecticut officials are wrong to claim states should not have to spend their own money to meet its mandates.

Federal officials said that since 2002, Connecticut has given “its unqualified assurance” that it would comply with the landmark law aimed at closing the education gap between rich and poor children. They say the state has since received more than $750 million in federal money based on that pledge.

“Now, on the eve of the deadline for implementing one of the central conditions of the act, the state seeks — first through a set of waiver requests and now through this lawsuit — to keep the funds while jettisoning the accompanying obligations.”

Connecticut in August became the first state to try to block the 2002 law. State officials argued in a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Hartford that the law was unconstitutional, an unfunded federal mandate costing more than the state received in federal aid.

Connecticut claimed a clause in the law asserted states would not have to use their own funds to pay for the bill’s requirements. State officials also cited a Connecticut statute banning the use of state funds to implement the law.

The lawsuit said states and school districts would have to spend their own money to comply with new testing and other provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Connecticut estimated it would be saddled with a $41.6 million shortfall through 2008 to meet the bill’s requirements.

A study by the state education department estimates that additional testing will cost Connecticut taxpayers another $8 million over the next two years.

Local school districts also will have to spend millions of dollars more to restructure schools, train teachers, and provide required extra help for students, another state study says.

“I don’t question that they gave us more money,” Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg told The Hartford Courant. “They just didn’t give us enough.”

Gov M. Jodi Rell said in a statement Saturday that Connecticut has “a solid case on the merits against the mandates of No Child Left Behind.”

The state’s testing programs for students “meet or exceed the federal government’s requirements,” she said.