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January 8, 2008
A judicial—and judicious?—blow to NCLBMore now on the biggest development on the sixth anniversary of No Child Left Behind that we noted yesterday: the ruling by the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that NCLB's "unfunded mandate" provision means requiring states and school districts to spend their own funds to comply with NCLB mandates is unconstitutional. The decision in School District of the City of Pontiac v. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education is the federal government's first court loss on this question. You can retrace the whole history of the case blow-by-blow, courtesy of NSBA's Legal Clips e-newsletter, on the School Law Issues section of the NSBA website.
As BoardBuzz explained way back in April 2005 when the suit was filed, NCLB includes language that states and districts don't have to foot the bill for the act's mandates, and the argument is that when Congress and the administration took credit for the act but then walked away from paying for it, they violated the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Spending Clause requires that Congress make very clear to states what strings are attached to federal funds.
One thing we finally got out of the lawsuit, as we pointed out, was at least a plausible interpretation from the feds about what the unfunded mandates language means. The lower court accepted that interpretation, but the Sixth Circuit decided for a variety of reasons it just doesn't hold up. More important, the appeals court said, just cooking up some explanation doesn't meet the test, which is that states know unambiguously what the deal is.
Now the case goes back down to the lower court. Secretary Margaret Spellings has indicated that the federal government will consider appealing to the Supreme Court. It's unclear whether or how this development will affect NCLB's prospects on the Hill or in the presidential race. Congress could change the language if it could get around to fixing NCLB—and if you read our past postings you'll notice BoardBuzz was urging Congress to improve NCLB even way back when the lawsuit was filed. Better yet, our lawmakers could really invest in America's children instead of just taking self-congratulatory bows for passing laws but leaving it to states and school boards to come up with the money.
They might want to act soon. Anti-NCLB rhetoric in the presidential race keeps heating up. One measure of that mood is this. Not so long ago NSBA was derided by NCLB cheerleaders for calling attention to the act's many shortcomings. Nowadays NSBA sometimes catches flak for working so hard to get the thing fixed and funded instead of trying to do away with it altogether.
Posted January 8, 2008 11:08 PM | No Child Left Behind
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