NEA's NCLB suit dismissed

Judge Bernard Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Nov. 23 approved the U.S. Education Department’s motion to dismiss the case, Pontiac et al. v. Spellings.

The suit was filed in April by nine school districts -- Pontiac, Mich.; Laredo, Texas; the Rutland (Vt.) Northeast Supervisory Union; and the six local school districts it serves, including the Leicester Town, Neshobe, Otter Valley Union High School, Pittsford Town, Sudbury, and Whiting Town school districts -- along with nine NEA affiliates.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings called the ruling “a victory for children and parents all across the country.” The NEA will appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Appeals Court.

The lawsuit was based on Section 9527(a) of NCLB, which states: “Nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the federal government to . . . mandate a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act.”

The plaintiffs charged that the federal government violated this provision by demanding that states and school districts spend their own money to comply with the requirements of NCLB, despite the fact that federal funding falls billions of dollars short of covering their costs to do so.

The Education Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on two grounds: that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue and that Section 9527(a) does not mean that NCLB cannot impose unfunded mandates on states and school districts. The court rejected the first argument, finding that the plaintiffs did have standing to sue.

But Judge Friedman agreed with the Education Department’s view on unfunded mandates. Section 9527(a) does not prohibit Congress from imposing unfunded mandates, he wrote. It only prohibits “federal officials from imposing additional, unfunded requirements, beyond those provided for in the statute.”

If Congress intended to prohibit unfunded mandates, the statute would have been phrased “to say so clearly and unambiguously,” he says.

William J. Mathis, superintendent of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, says the judge issued a “very narrow ruling” and “missed the point entirely.”

“The judge says it’s all right for the government to pass unfunded mandates. That’s financial irresponsibility,” Mathis says. “The law is very clear. If the federal government imposes a mandate, it has to pay for it.”

He says his district agreed to become a plaintiff because when NCLB was enacted, “we determined this is going to cost a whole lot more than what we’re going to get.”

The district gets just 3 to 4 percent of its total education spending from Title I, Mathis says. To meet the goals of NCLB, the district would need a funding increase of nearly 28 percent, and that’s just for remedial programs and the like -- not for testing.