Re: Appeals Court Asked to Revive NCLB Legal Challenge

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 If this isn't the silly season or what - a teachers' union arguing that states should not have to spend their own money to support their schools. Great use of the membership's money.   
 Art
  
 -----Original Message-----
 From: bobschaeffer@earthlink.net
 To: arn-l@interversity.org; arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com
 Sent: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 8:06 AM
 Subject: [arn-l] Appeals Court Asked to Revive NCLB Legal Challenge
 
  SCHOOLS IN THREE STATES ASK COURT TO REVIVE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO NCLB MANDATE 
 The Associated Press -- November 28, 2006 
 by Terry Kinney 
 
 Cincinnati - School districts in three states and the nation's largest teachers union asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to revive a lawsuit challenging the way a government education program is funded. 
 
 The 2.7 million-member National Education Association, its affiliates in 10 states, and school districts in Michigan, Vermont and Texas had sued to block the No Child Left Behind law, President Bush's signature education policy. 
 
 They argued that schools should not have to comply with requirements that aren't paid for by the federal government, and that the government is imposing unfunded mandates even though the act prohibits unfunded mandates. 
 
 Chief U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in Detroit dismissed the lawsuit in November 2005, saying the plaintiffs failed to support their claim. 
 
 NEA general counsel Robert Chanin, representing the Pontiac, Mich., school district and the other plaintiffs, told the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel Tuesday that states submitted compliance plans and requests for funding based on their understanding of the level of government support that would be provided. 
 
 But Congress appropriated far less than needed, leaving local school districts to make up the difference, he said. 
 
 Government attorney Alisa Klein argued that the intent of the law was never to fully fund the provisions laid out in the act, designed to make sure that children in poorer school districts have the same chance to become proficient in basic skills as students in wealthy districts. 
 
 "A state's commitment to making academic progress under the standards set out in its plan is the cornerstone of the act," the government said in its brief. "It cannot seriously be urged that a state could refuse to spend its own money to help its elementary and secondary schoolchildren become proficient in reading, science and math." 
 
 The law requires states to revise academic standards and develop tests to measure students' progress annually. If students fail to make progress, the law requires states to take action against school districts. 
 
 Appeals Judge David Mc-Keague asked Chanin why a school that did not like participating in No Child Left Behind could not simply walk away from it. 
 
 "We don't want to opt out," Chanin said. "This is a good program. We just want to participate on the terms Congress told us would apply." 
 
 The NEA is paying the costs of the appeal. 
 
   
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