Court dismisses remaining count in Connecticut NCLB suit
A federal district court has dismissed the last remaining count in Connecticut’s lawsuit challenging the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In September 2006, the court dismissed three of four counts on jurisdictional grounds and, thus, did not address the merits of those claims. The only remaining count alleged that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) violated the federal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by rejecting the state’s two proposed plan amendments regarding the timing and method of assessment of special education and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students. As to this count, Connecticut argued that the court should overturn ED’s denial for three reasons: (1) ED failed to provide the state with a hearing, in violation of NCLB and of the APA; (2) ED’s decision was arbitrary and capricious, thus violating the APA; and (3) ED misinterpreted and misapplied NCLB’s “unfunded mandates” provision. The court rejected the first reason, finding that in its previous ruling dismissing the other three counts it already had dismissed that portion of the fourth count alleging that ED provided an inadequate hearing, because that part of the claim was now moot. In rejecting the first reason, the court stressed that it was not ruling on the merits of Connecticut’s argument that NCLB “extends to plan amendments, as well as state plans.”
Turning to the second reason, the court found that ED did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in denying Connecticut’s special education proposal for out of grade testing because “by definition, it does not measure mastery of academic content or achievement for the grade in which the special education students are enrolled and therefore, does not hold special education students to the same standards as all students” as required by the statute. The court rejected the state’s argument that its plan was not discernibly different from ED’s 2003 regulation that exempted from testing one percent of special education students. “Congress enacted the exemption into law and did so well before [ED’s] ruling on the State's proposed plan amendment [and] Congress thus concluded that a special, limited exemption for children with the most profound cognitive disabilities should be a part of the Nation's statutory law.” The fact that “Congress saw fit statutorily to authorize a specific exemption advanced by [ED] only confirms that Congress did not intend to permit other exemptions, and certainly not an open-ended one such as that sought by the State in its proposed plan amendment.” As for the state’s LEP student plan, the court concluded that ED’s denial was not arbitrary or capricious “because a three-year exemption for LEP students flies in the face of NCLB’s explicit requirement that LEP students must be tested annually.” NCLB’s requirement that LEP students be tested with tests written in English “‘once they have attended schools in the United States for three years’ only further confirms that the Act contemplates testing of LEP students before the three-year mark proposed by the State.”
Finally, as to the third reason, dealing with NCLB’s “unfunded mandates” language, the court held after reviewing the submissions the state filed with its proposed plan amendments that “a reasonable person could not conclude from the State's submissions that it had raised the unfunded mandates issue with sufficient specificity and clarity that [ED] was aware that [it] must decide the issue in order to rule on the State's proposed plan amendments.” The court emphasized that it was not ruling on the merits of Connecticut’s “unfunded mandates” claim, noting that “the State is free to pursue that issue before [ED]” and that “[i]t is truly unfortunate that the Court is unable to reach this issue because the State failed adequately to raise it in the context of the State's proposed plan amendments.”
Connecticut v. Spellings, No. 05-1330 (D. Conn. Apr. 28, 2008)
[Editor’s Note: The New York Times reports below that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (CT, NY, VT). The article also quotes William L. Taylor, chairman of the Citizens’ Commission for Civil Rights, which sided with the federal government in the case, as calling the ruling “a complete rejection of the State of Connecticut in its efforts to escape responsibility for educating low-income children.” For a summary of the district court’s earlier ruling dismissing the first three counts, see the second link.
In the other major legal challenge invoking NCLB’s unfunded mandates provision, the federal government in February petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (KY, OH, MI, TN) to have the entire court reconsider a January ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that the unfunded mandate language mandates provision meant that states were not provided the clear notice required by Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution that they would have to make up for federal funding shortfalls. Background on the panel decision and its aftermath, the petition for rehearing, and the response in opposition to the petition also are below.]
New York Times, 4/30/08, By Sam Dillon
NSBA School Law pages on Connecticut v. Spellings
NSBA School Law pages on School Dist. of the City of Pontiac v. Spellings
ED petition for rehearing in Pontiac v. Spellings
NEA response to petition in Pontiac v. Spellings