No Child Left Behind Act —

Legal Fight Calls Federal Law

An Unfunded Mandate

(AP) — The nation’s largest teachers union and school districts in three states are launching a legal fight over the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), aiming to free schools from complying with any part of the education law not paid for by the federal government.

On April 20, nine school districts in Michigan, Texas, and Vermont, along with the National Education Association (NEA), and ten NEA affiliates in Michigan, Texas, Vermont, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah filed a lawsuit asking the courts to recognize that the NCLB act requires the federal government to pay for billions of dollars in new mandates, and to prevent taxpayers in school districts across the country from being forced to shoulder the burden of these regulations at the expense of proven classroom programs for children.

Leading the fight is the NEA, a union of 2.7 million members that represents many public educators and is financing the lawsuit. The NEA has consistently sought to guarantee every child an equal opportunity to succeed in the nation’s public schools.

The NEA contends that the No Child Left Behind Act, which President Bush signed into law in 2002, presents real obstacles to helping students and strengthening public schools because it focuses on rigid, unfounded mandates rather than support for proven practices; and leads to bureaucracy and standardized testing rather than teacher-led, classroom focused solutions.

US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, as the chief officer of the agency that enforces the law, remains the only defendant in the Pontiac v Spellings lawsuit. The suit centers on the question of whether the president and Congress have provided enough money. The challenge is built upon one paragraph in the law that says no state or school district can be forced to spend its money on expenses the federal government has not covered.

“What it means is just what it says, that you don’t have to do anything this law requires unless you receive federal funds to do it,” said NEA general counsel Bob Chanin. “We want the Department of Education to simply do what Congress told it to do. There’s a promise in that law, it’s unambiguous, and it’s not being complied with.”

The plaintiffs want a judge to order that states and schools don’t have to spend their own money to pay for the law’s expenses, and order the Education Department not to try to yank federal money from a state or school that refuses to comply based on those grounds.

Spending on No Child Left Behind programs has increased from $17.4 billion to $24.4 billion, federal figures show. The Bush administration has repeatedly said schools have enough money to make the law work. Yet the suit accuses the government of shortchanging schools by at least $27 billion, the difference between what Congress authorized and what it has spent. The shortfall is even larger, the suit says, if the figures include all promised funding for poor children.

The suit, citing a series of cost studies, outlines billions of dollars in expenses to meet the law’s mandates. They include the costs of adding yearly testing, getting all children up to grade level in reading and math, and ensuring teachers are highly qualified. To cover those costs, the suit says, states have shifted money away from other priorities such as foreign languages, art, and smaller classes. The money gap has hurt schools’ ability to meet progress goals, which in turn has damaged their reputations, the suit says.

Although the NEA and school districts in several states have filed legal challenges to the NCLB law, Connecticut is the first state to file a lawsuit.

The federal law requires Connecticut to spend approximately $112 million to expand its testing program and to aid local districts in carrying out other federal requirements over the next three years. Connecticut presently tests public school children in fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth grades. The federal law requires all states to administer standardized tests to students in grades three through eight on a yearly basis. Expanding Connecticut’s standardized testing program to test students in grades three, five, and seven would force the state Department of Education to spend an additional $8 million of its own money over the next three years. Connecticut’s suit could gain strength because the NCLB law includes a passage, which was first sponsored by Republicans during the Clinton administration, that prohibits the federal government from requiring states to spend their own funds to carry out federal policies mandated in the law. State officials say more tests won’t tell educators more than they already know from Connecticut’s Mastery Test, considered to be one of the nation’s most rigorous tests.

Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal plans to sue the federal government arguing it forces Connecticut to administer new standardized tests at a cost of millions of dollars that Washington refuses to pay for. Blumenthal said he was reaching out to other states that may wish to join the effort. He emphasized that there must be a clear binding commitment to eliminate unfounded mandates for Connecticut and its cities and towns. Blumenthal went on to comment, “The federal government’s approach with this law is illegal and unconstitutional. The dissatisfaction is felt across the country and is across the board, politically.”

Senator Christopher Dodd added, “My hope is that the secretary of education will understand that one size fits all doesn’t necessarily work here. And, secondly, get some money back up here. Federal mandates without resources are just wrong.”

Last week, Newtown Superintendent Evan Pitkoff said it was a bold move on the part of the state commissioner to file the lawsuit. He added that educators in Newtown are continually doing assessments throughout the year, assessments that are ongoing for various reasons for instance to diagnose a particular student or to be used to revise the curriculum.

 “That’s part of our core quality teaching in Newtown,” the superintendent said. “Why would we want the state to spend millions of dollars for what we already have a good handle on?”