National Teachers' Union, 3 School Districts File 'No Child' Lawsuit
Michael Dobbs,The Washington Post
Issue date: 6/8/05 Section: News
The nation's largest teacher union on Wednesday joined school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont in filing a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education for failing to provide adequate funding for the No Child Left Behind initiative.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges to the Bush administration's signature education reform, which aims to make every student in the country proficient in reading and math by 2014. On Tuesday, the Utah state legislature voted to give priority to their own state school accountability system over the federal law in the event of a conflict.
"The rebellion is growing," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based think tank that has been tracking implementation of No Child Left Behind. "These actions are all ratcheting up the pressure on the Bush administration to either relax some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind or provide more money to fund it.'"
Newly appointed education secretary Margaret Spellings has been attempting to defuse protests against No Child Left Behind by promising a "commonsense" attitude toward interpreting the law and broadening exemptions for disabled students. But she has been unable to bridge the gap with several states, including Utah, Connecticut and her home state of Texas, which are demanding much greater concessions from the federal government.
Lawyers for the National Education Association, the teachers' union that has been at the forefront of protests against No Child Left Behind, seized on a clause in the law that protects states from incurring "any costs not paid for under this Act" Opponents depict the law as an under funded federal mandate that has imposed billions of dollars of extra spending on the states.
"The principle of the law is simple," said teachers' union president Reg Weaver. "If you regulate, you have to pay."
Bush administration officials dispute studies carried out by several states that purport to show that they are being forced to pick up the costs of additional standardized testing required by the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation. They argue that federal funding for education has increased significantly over the past five years.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges to the Bush administration's signature education reform, which aims to make every student in the country proficient in reading and math by 2014. On Tuesday, the Utah state legislature voted to give priority to their own state school accountability system over the federal law in the event of a conflict.
"The rebellion is growing," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based think tank that has been tracking implementation of No Child Left Behind. "These actions are all ratcheting up the pressure on the Bush administration to either relax some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind or provide more money to fund it.'"
Newly appointed education secretary Margaret Spellings has been attempting to defuse protests against No Child Left Behind by promising a "commonsense" attitude toward interpreting the law and broadening exemptions for disabled students. But she has been unable to bridge the gap with several states, including Utah, Connecticut and her home state of Texas, which are demanding much greater concessions from the federal government.
Lawyers for the National Education Association, the teachers' union that has been at the forefront of protests against No Child Left Behind, seized on a clause in the law that protects states from incurring "any costs not paid for under this Act" Opponents depict the law as an under funded federal mandate that has imposed billions of dollars of extra spending on the states.
"The principle of the law is simple," said teachers' union president Reg Weaver. "If you regulate, you have to pay."
Bush administration officials dispute studies carried out by several states that purport to show that they are being forced to pick up the costs of additional standardized testing required by the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation. They argue that federal funding for education has increased significantly over the past five years.
