Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now v. New York City Department of Education
A New York federal district court has ruled that parents of students attending public schools do not have a private right of action to sue to enforce the No Child Left Behind Act’s (NCLB) provisions requiring school districts to notify parents that their child is attending a school in need of improvement and offer tutoring services or transfer to another school. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) filed suit under § 1983 against New York City’s Department of Education on behalf of parents of children attending failing schools. Relying the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Gonzaga v. Doe that unless “the text and structure of a federal statute … evince this clear and unambiguous Congressional intention to create individual rights, ‘there is no basis for a private suit, whether under § 1983 or under an implied right of action,’” the court determined that NCLB’s language and legislative history reveal no such intention. In arriving at this conclusion, the court cited three factors. First, the notice, transfer, and tutoring provisions “do not contain the kind of ‘rights-creating’ language that the Supreme Court has deemed ‘critical to showing requisite congressional intent to create new rights.’” Second, the provisions have only an “aggregate focus” that is not concerned with whether any particular person’s needs have been met. Third, NCLB’s enforcement scheme lacks any procedures for individuals to enforce the provisions against perceived violations.
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now v. New York City Department of Education, 2003 WL 21471910 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2003)
[Editor’s Note: This appears to be the first court decision applying the Gonzaga analysis to the question of a private right of action to enforce the new federal statutory provisions enacted under NCLB.]