Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Appeal in NCLB Case
School District of the City of Pontiac v. Duncan,
the National Education Association (NEA)-led legal challenge
to the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, reached
its denouement early last month. The U.S. Supreme Court,
on June 7th, denied plaintiffs’ petition for a
writ of certiorari without comment. The NEA and nine
school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont had
argued that in implementing the law, the U.S. Department
of Education was violating the “unfunded mandate”
provision of NCLB by requiring states and school districts
to spend their own funds in order to achieve compliance.
As Congress begins to debate the reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the
NEA
will likely redirect their efforts toward influencing
the legislation.
NCLB, the Bush-era version of the ESEA, made receipt
of federal funds contingent upon progress in student
achievement. Plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality
of the law’s implementation, which requires schools
to make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP)
on state-set testing benchmarks in math and reading
for myriad student subgroups in grades 3-8, with the
end goal of achieving 100% proficiency across the nation
by 2014. Schools that fail to make AYP may face state
takeover or restructuring, or even loss of federal funds.
The legislation
includes a provision that stipulates that states and
school districts should not be required to “spend
any funds or incur any costs not paid for” by
the federal government. Since the inception of NCLB,
there has been extensive controversy over whether even
with the historically large increases Congress appropriated
for the Act school districts had sufficient resources
to meet its demanding requirements. Cost
studies in the early 2000s estimated funding shortfalls
in several states at between $42 million and $1.5 billion.
The high court’s decision not to hear the case
leaves in place a federal judge’s dismissal of
the case. (Although the plaintiffs appealed the judge’s
decision, the federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit split 8-8, leaving the earlier ruling in tact.)
A similar challenge to NCLB’s failure to provide
adequate funding to support its implementation brought
by the State of Connecticut was dismissed this week
by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds
that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear it.
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