NEA/District Lawsuits- NCLB

[Moses]

Teachers, districts sue over 'No Child Left Behind'
California officials to see how promised changes play out


Jake Henshaw
Desert Sun Sacramento Bureau
April 21, 2005

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As a national teachers' union and nine school districts across the country pursue a landmark lawsuit seeking to be exempted from President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, California's top education officials say they'll wait and see how the new federal education chief's adjustments to the law play out for the state.

But Coachella Valley Unified School District will push forward, it says, with a planned suit against California's own implementation of the No Child Left Behind standards.

Richard Riordan, California secretary for education said, "I believe No Child Left Behind is an excellent program and I think it has problems, but those problems are now being addressed by the new head of the (federal) Department of Education, Margaret Spellings."

Many educators across the country disagree, Wednesday's suit shows. In a sweeping move that could affect schoolchildren in every state, the nation's largest teachers union asked a federal judge to exempt school districts from any requirements of the education law that aren't paid for by the federal government.

The lawsuit filed by the National Education Association on behalf of nine school districts and 10 local union affiliates says Congress has given schools $27 billion less than the law calls for. It challenges Education Secretary Spellings to increase funding or let schools opt out of unfunded demands.

"School districts have been very, very patient, but their patience has run out. Budgets have been eaten up by the rules and regulations imposed by this law," NEA President Reg Weaver said.

Districts and NEA affiliates in Michigan, Texas and Vermont signed on, as well as affiliates in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah. The teachers union will finance the suit.

Spellings responded: "President Bush and Congress have provided historic funding increases for education, and yet we continue to hear the same weak arguments from the NEA. Four separate studies assert the law is appropriately funded and not a mandate." Since 2001, spending rose from $17.4 billion to $25.3billion.

In terms of California's relationship to federal funding, Riordan said, "I think the problems for us are very complicated and a lot of them have been already been addressed and the federal government has become more flexible."

Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, said the department's staff hasn't seen the lawsuit so no one there could comment in detail on it.

California recently concluded negotiations with Spellings office about the state's application of No Child Left Behind standards. As a result, more than 190 school districts, including Palm Springs Unified School District and Desert Sands Unified School District were placed on a "Program Improvement" list of schools that don't meet the No Child Left Behind standards and could face harsh sanctions, including the dissolution of the district.

"Where we see a big hit coming is when sanctions ramp up" for underperforming schools, McClean added.

"If NCLB were to continue as it is right now, the vast majority of California school districts ultimately would fall under program improvement and with those sanctions come financial burdens for the state," McLean said.

A school district that's making overall progress can fall under program improvement under No Child Left Behind if just one or two students in a certain very specific category such as special education don't make their standardized test score levels.

One thing that could ease the hit, McLean said, is if the federal government will allow California to use its Academic Performance Index (API) to assess school progress instead of the NCLB rules that don't recognize growth.

Under the API measurement, both Palm Springs and Desert Sands are making the grade and Coachella Valley Unified is showing very strong progress despite its challenges.

O'Connell has worked with 16 other states for the last year to persuade the federal government to allow the use of a growth model and McLean said that Spellings recently indicated an interest in considering this approach.

"She hasn't committed specifically to that yet," McLean said.

Coachella Valley Unified School District, with more than 80 percent of its students classified as English Language Learners, was already on of the list of Program Improvement schools before California's negotiations with federal officials.

The school's board recently voted to prepare a lawsuit against California in protest of the state's administration of standardized tests in English to students who had not had adequate time to learn academic English. Several bilingual education groups and two other school districts - one in Tulare County and another near Salinas - have announced plans to join the lawsuit.

School board member and former board president Gloria Maldonado, of Indio, said that the board would "definitely" push forward with the lawsuit against California, which is expected to be filed at the end of April or early May.

[Moses]

Education Lawsuit Tests Commitment

The president is fond of pointing to what he calls the soft bigotry of low expectations that exists in many public schools. But there is a flip side: Unfunded promises are worse. When you raise expectations and fail to provide the means to achieve the higher goals, you are, in effect, inflicting a harsh bigotry of programmed failure.

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The president's signature education initiative, No Child Left Behind, suffered its first major challenge last week. The National Education Association, a teacher's union referred to as a "terrorist organization" by former Education Secretary Rod Paige, has filed suit against the federal government for failing to make good on its promise.

The stakes in this battle are huge. The NEA, with its 2.7 million members, doesn't hide the fact that it is strongly opposed to President Bush's educational policies. Last year the union unleashed its membership in the presidential campaign, supporting John Kerry and later backing off to lick its wounds.

But in this fight the NEA is not alone. Along with the union a number of school districts in three states have joined the suit, among them the Laredo School District.

The suit formally alleges what has been an informal complaint for years: that the No Child Left Behind Act is an empty promise. Specifically, the suit hinges on one paragraph of the act, which states that school districts, or states, can't be obligated to spend their own money to make good on the federal government's promises. The suit claims the government has funded $27 billion less than it promised and that states and local school districts have had to make up the difference. Opponents of the act say the paragraph in question nullifies the law unless there is money to back it, and so far there isn't.

Technically, it comes down to a question of states' rights. Do states have an obligation to put an unfunded mandate into practice, when the word of the law itself says they don't? It's an interesting predicament for the administration, especially in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case where the administration came out in fierce favor of states' rights.

The White House defends its position in this case by saying it has increased educational funding by "historic levels." [see Spellings, above] And there is truth to that. During the Bush presidency, education spending, in the programs specified in No Child Left Behind, has increased by 40 percent. [Where has the money gone? Mostly, in our state, to political patronage orgs who "consult" w/ the Republican Governor on how to comply w/ NCLB!! The actual compliance is unfunded. In addition, the money of course goes to the "Education Improvement Industry": Testing companies, often owned by media and defense contractors]

But the lawsuit is using the administration's own language to make its case. School districts, they say, have had to absorb the cost of No Child Left Behind mandates such as testing, bringing children to grade level in reading and math and making sure teachers are exceptionally qualified. If the federal government doesn't provide funding for the mandates, says the NEA, then it shouldn't be able to pull funding from schools that reject the standards because of inadequate funding.

The president is fond of pointing to what he calls the soft bigotry of low expectations that exists in many public schools. But there is a flip side: Unfunded promises are worse. When you raise expectations and fail to provide the means to achieve the higher goals, you are, in effect, inflicting a harsh bigotry of programmed failure.

Bush's policies are seen by many as a full attack on public education. It's a serious contention, because at its inception, No Child Left Behind was touted as a law that would make sure minority and poor children were tended to, especially in light of the fact that they historically have lagged in academic achievement.

Republicans are quickly finding that governing as the majority is much harder than campaigning as the minority. It's a lesson the Democrats never learned, which is why they're in such disarray.

The lesson of the NEA suit is that being in power doesn't mean you get to impose your view on the world, especially if you don't provide the resources to put your view into practice. It also means you can't create double standards. You can't fight for states' rights if it has to do with moral issues and abandon the same idea if it has to do with fiscal matters.

It seems the administration that likes to navigate the clear and straightforward ocean of right and wrong has ventured into the murky sea of governing amid political nuance.

This president likes to steam ahead when all indications call for manning the lifeboats. We'll see how he manages this one.

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— Victor Landa
San Antonio Express-News
2005-04-24
www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/vlanda/stories/MYSA042405.3H.ives.1fd80463e.html