No Blogger Left Behind, Addendum 2

It's just too good to be true!

The National Education Association (nation's largest teacher's union) and several school districts filed a lawsuit against Margaret Spelling, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education over No Child Left Behind.

Turns out there's a clause in the law that says the federal government cannot require states or school district to spend their own money meeting federal requirements. Of course, this very same law has existed since the Clinton administration, but apparently Congress and the DoE felt they were above such silly liberal laws.

The federal government has spent less than half of what they promised to spend, and even that most likely isn't enough to cover the expenses of NCLB compliance. You can read the AP article here: Teachers And School Districts To Sue Over Education Law (NY Times, 4/20).

NEA general counsel Bob Chanin had this to say: "There's a promise in that law, it's unambiguous, and it's not being complied with."

If you weren't aware, poor states such as West Virginia and Maryland had so much trouble coming up with funds, they nearly decided to give up their federal education budgets when NCLB was adopted in 2002. Several states threatened to simply ignore the law, but political pressure from both voters and the Bush administration eventually forced all states to comply.

My favorite part of the article is the mention of a past exchange between the NEA and former Secretary of the DoE, Rod Paige. Apparently, Paige "referred to the NEA as a 'terrorist organization' for the way it opposed the law, a comment for which he later apologized."

So I guess calling them 'Un-American' is a promotion. The National Education Association USED to be A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. For you know, pointing out the flaws in NCLB.

To be fair, the White House finally coughed up a decent spokeswoman, Dana Perino. "Perino said Bush has overseen 'historic levels of funding' and a commitment to holding schools to high standards. States are making strong achievement gains under the law, and Spellings has made it clear she will help state leaders as long as they are making proven progress under the law."

I haven't seen any evidence that states are 'making strong achievement gains' or that Spellings has made any such promise to state leaders. And let's get real, the 'historic levels of funding' Bush has provided have all gone to implement these tests, not to improve classrooms in any form. And remember, less than half of the funding has actually been provided to the states. But at least Perino was professional in her comments.

The Washington Post has their own version of the story, which you can read here: 'No Child' Lawsuit (4/20). It also throws in details from the Utah legislation that were already in previous articles.

I'm cautiously thrilled by this. Let's hope school children won't face a loss of funding by actions of either party on this one.

Peace and love,

Sketch E.



* Special thanks to Justin for bringing this to my attention as soon as the story broke.