Wisconsin official says NCLB unenforceable
06/01/04 -- Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager issued an opinion May 12 stating the federal government can't force states to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) without fully funding it.
The act says the federal government cannot "mandate, direct, or control a state, local educational agency, or school's curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of state or local resources, or mandate a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under the act."
According to Lautenschlager, "That language can only reasonably be read as tying the program standards and obligations of a federal funding recipient under [NCLB] directly to whether federal monies are available to discharge those obligations."
"If a federal agency is requiring Wisconsin or its subdivisions to expend their own resources to comply with [NCLB], that would implicate numerous constitutional questions," she says.
The Institute for Wisconsin's Future has estimated that the cost of ensuring that every student in every school can reach "proficiency" levels on standardized tests would be an additional $2,280 per pupil, for a total of $2.5 billion, while the state receives $152 million in Title I funding to comply with NCLB.
Although the opinion clears the way for a lawsuit, Ken Cole, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, doesn't think that will happen any time soon. He says there is widespread support for NCLB among the public and that schools are making strong progress in raising student achievement.
"If the federal government would fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, that would have as much of an impact on schools' ability to comply with NCLB as anything else," Cole says. "That is what school boards are most concerned with."
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