01/06/04 -- The Reading, Pa., school district appears to be the first in the nation to file a legal complaint against a state over the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
The district filed a petition in the state's Commonwealth Court in December. Its main complaint involves the state education department's failure to provide the promised funding so the district can implement the law.
"What Reading has done, a lot of other school boards would like to do. There's a lot of frustration out there," says Timothy Allwein, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
If Reading is successful, he expects other districts in the state will file suits. However, he doubts the courts will be sympathetic. "We don't have a long history of the judicial branch being a strong advocate for public education."
Other districts across the nation are exploring NCLB litigation. The National Education Association is expected to announce a lawsuit soon against the U.S. Education Department over the federal government's failure to meet its financial obligations to pay for NCLB.
The NEA has been searching for a state education department to join in the suit and reportedly has found one but has not yet made a formal announcement.
Rick Guida, the attorney representing the Reading school district, says he is "amazed that there weren't hundreds of districts" filing suit over NCLB. He suspects some districts are worried they will lose some grant money if they go that route.
Reading is not worried about retribution because it already is in "serious financial trouble," Guida says. The district has a budget deficit and a plummeting tax base.
"We didn't do this to make a national statement. It's a matter of financial survival for us," he says.
Thirteen of the district's 19 schools did not make adequate yearly progress (AYP). Seven of those schools are on a warning list and must offer school choice. The state rejected the district's request for an appeal.
Reading's petition involves these complaints:
• Pennsylvania's plan for implementing NCLB says each demographic subgroup in each grade of a school must have at least 40 students for that group's test scores to be counted separately in determining AYP.
Guida says that number is too small and that "40 is an arbitrary number and is not based on statistical methodology," as required by the law.
• The state did not offer reading and math tests in Spanish as it was required to do. Sixty-four percent of Reading's students are Hispanic, and 11 percent of that group are limited-English proficient (LEP).
Schools will not make AYP in the LEP group if the students can't read the test and there's a new group of students tested every year, Guida says. Meanwhile, schools face a series of escalating sanctions if they don't make AYP.
• The most important issue is the state's failure to provide technical assistance and funding, Guida says. "We asked the state for money. They said no."
And he says this is in violation of a federal statute prohibiting the government from passing along unfunded mandates.
Reading has already spent money on implementing NCLB for such things as administrative records and transportation involving school choice.
Reading Superintendent Melissa Jamula told the Pittsburgh-Gazette that she "absolutely" believes in the NCLB Act's goals of accountability and teacher quality.
But she said, "There are things contained in the law that just aren't right and are clearly unfair and clearly inconsistent. We felt an obligation to our students and our schools to file the petition on their behalf."
Cara O'Donnell, a spokesperson for the state education department, says, "We will be in contact with the school district to see if a resolution can be reached without litigation." However, she adds, "Standards of accountability must be met."