NCLB Enforcement Entirely State Responsibility

November 25, 2008 by dave

I was a bit disappointed to read this Associated Press story reporting on an appeals court ruling.

A federal appeals court says parents cannot sue school districts to force them to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.

The ruling Thursday comes in a case filed against the low-performing Newark Public Schools in New Jersey.

Parents say the district failed to notify them of the right to transfer out of failing schools and of other provisions required under the law.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says enforcement of the act is up to state educational agencies.

That's really disappointing. The reason that the Federal government felt compelled to create NCLB in the first place was that various states were ignoring the achievement of poor and minority students. By eliminating the parent's right to sue the district to force them to abide by NCLB requirements, we're placing the enforcement burden back on the very same state departments of education that didn't want NCLB in the first place. Those state bureaucrats are among the people waiting for NCLB to go away so they can get back to the good old days before the appearance of school accountability.

The situation isn't entirely hopeless since the US Department of Education does have control over the federal purse strings. They can motivate the states to some degree. I thought this Associated Press story was also interesting. Apparently, because of the judicial stay in implementing the 8th grade Algebra I testing requirement, the California Department of Education will miss out on $1M of NCLB funding.

After they sued, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge postponed the algebra test, leaving California without a new eighth-grade math test.

Federal officials say that means the state will not be able to follow the No Child Left Behind Act anytime soon, prompting them to withhold $1 million.

California schools won’t lose out, however, said Chad Colby, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education. He said the funding instead will be distributed directly to needy schools, without input from California’s Department of Education (CDE).

So apparently the funding will still go to California schools, only the US Department of Education (US DOE) gets to decide how it is allocated rather than CDE. Unfortunately, the US DOE only has so much control. States have shown a willingness and an ability to play the rules to minimize the impact of NCLB's requirements on their state's schools.

So, while the adults continue to play political games, children across the country continue to get a sub-standard education from some of our public schools. Our children are clearly the losers in this game.

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