Law & Courts

Connecticut Pledges First State Legal Challenge to NCLB Law

By Jeff Archer — April 12, 2005 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The backlash against the No Child Left Behind Act was raised to a new level last week when Connecticut’s attorney general announced that his state plans to sue the U.S. Department of Education over the testing mandates in the sweeping federal law.

In announcing his intentions, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he was inviting other states to join the legal challenge, which he said would argue that the law violates federal statute by forcing states to use their own money to carry out its testing requirements.

“I’m not making a judgment about educational policy, whether testing is a good thing or a bad thing,” he said in an interview last week. “The point is that the federal government is mandating it, and it’s doing so without funding it.”

The legal threat is one of the boldest in a growing number of challenges to the Bush administration’s hallmark education law. Last month, Utah lawmakers took up—and then delayed—a bill to have the state’s education requirements take precedence over those in the federal law. (“Utah Legislators Delay Action on NCLB Bill,” March 9, 2005.)

In addition, a handful of local districts have filed their own lawsuits challenging the No Child Left Behind Act, a 3-year-old revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The National Education Association has been encouraging states to take legal action against the law, but so far none has.

Jack Jennings, the president of the Washington-based Center on Education Policy, said a lawsuit by Connecticut would mark a significant escalation in the national debate over the law’s mandates.

“This is the first time that you have a state filing suit against the federal [law], and that’s a serious matter,” he said. “It’s not just a disgruntled school district, or a few parents. It’s the state of Connecticut saying that the federal government overstepped its bounds.”

Request Denied

The move to file a lawsuit follows a March report by the Connecticut Department of Education that claims the state would have to spend $8 million of its own money by 2008 to carry out the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. The law mandates annual testing in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8, and once during high school. Connecticut assesses student performance in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10.

Mr. Blumenthal said that requiring a state to shoulder such a financial burden goes against a provision in the No Child Left Behind law that says federal officials cannot “mandate a state … to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act.” A similar argument was made last spring by Wisconsin’s attorney general in a written analysis of the federal law. (“Wis. Review Invites ‘No Child’ Lawsuit,” May 26, 2004.)

“As we thought about the potential claims, and provisions in the statute, what became crystal clear was that Congress sought to prevent exactly this kind of practice,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

In February, the U.S. Department of Education denied a request by Connecticut officials for a waiver to allow the state to continue with its current testing regime. In a letter explaining her decision, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said that testing in more grades was needed to better identify students’ needs.

Betty J. Sternberg, the Connecticut commissioner of education, said last week that the money for additional state assessments would be better spent on other improvement strategies, such as preschool programs. Also last week, she released a second analysis contending that, along with the added state costs, local districts would have to spend millions to meet the demands of the federal law.

“The real question is, will doing more statewide accountability testing really address the achievement-gap issue?” Ms. Sternberg said in an interview. “Or are there proven programs that we know we should provide to make the gap smaller?”

Although Secretary Spellings announced new flexibility in meeting the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act last week, she made clear that the requirement to test students in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school would continue. (“States to Get New Options on NCLB Law.” this issue.)

Achievement Gap Cited

Officials with the federal Education Department said the state’s intention to begin legal action was “disappointing.”

Agency spokeswoman DJ Nordquist said in a statement that Connecticut’s estimates of the costs of the No Child Left Behind law were “flawed,” and that Connecticut’s students “are suffering from one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation.”

“Instead of addressing the issue at hand, the state has chosen to attack a law that is designed to assist the students most in need,” she said, adding that Connecticut has received more than $750 million in federal funding under the legislation since President Bush signed it into law in January 2002.

Ross Wiener, a principal partner at the Washington-based Education Trust, agreed that the additional testing called for in the NCLB law would help the state better pinpoint its weaknesses. He noted that while Connecticut students overall are among the top-performing in the country, the state’s minority students and those living in poverty score far below the state averages.

“Poor students and students of color are underperforming in Connecticut public schools,” said Mr. Wiener, whose research and advocacy group supports the No Child Left Behind Act. “And the leadership there needs to respond to those performance issues in more constructive ways.”

Asked when he planned to file the lawsuit, Attorney General Blumenthal said April 6 that the filing was “imminent.” The main consideration, he added, is how long to wait to allow other parties to join. “We have tried every other avenue of relief,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “We are left with no recourse except for the courts.”

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum How AI Use Is Expanding in K-12 Schools
Join this free virtual event to explore how AI technology is—and is not—improving K-12 teaching and learning.
Mathematics Webinar How to Build Students’ Confidence in Math
Learn practical tips to build confident mathematicians in our webinar.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Supreme Court Faces Big Test on Religious Students' Opt-Outs From LGBTQ+ Books
The justices will weigh whether a school district must allow parents with religious objections to LGBTQ+ books to excuse their children.
9 min read
Jeff Roman works on homework with his son.
Jeff Roman, a parent who has religious concerns about LGBTQ+ storybooks used in the Montgomery County, Md., school district, works on homework with his son.
Courtesy of Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Law & Courts Another Court Lets the Trump Admin. Keep Teacher-Training Grants Frozen
A federal appeals court overturned a lower court's order that had temporarily restored millions of dollars in terminated grant funds.
4 min read
Young Female Teacher Giving a Lecture During an Adult Education Course in School, Having a Conversation with a Older Female with Laptop. Diverse Mature Students Doing Textbook Exercises in Classroom
iStock/Getty
Law & Courts Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin. to End Teacher-Prep Grants
The high court, over three justices' dissent, granted the administration's request to remove a lower court's block on ending the grants.
5 min read
Erin Huff, a kindergarten teacher at Waverly Elementary School, works with, from left to right, Ava Turner, a 2nd grader, Benton Ryan, 1st grade, and 3rd grader Haven Green, on estimating measurements using mini marshmallows in Waverly, Ill., on Dec. 18, 2019. Huff, a 24-year-old teacher in her third year, says relatively low pay, stress and workload often discourage young people from pursuing teaching degrees, leading to a current shortage of classroom teachers in Illinois. A nonprofit teacher-training program is using a $750,000 addition to the state budget to speed up certification to address a rampant teacher shortage.
Erin Huff, a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher at Waverly Elementary in Illinois, pictured here on Dec. 18, 2019, says low pay, high stress, and heavy workloads often discourage young people from entering teacher preparation programs. The U.S. Supreme Court on April 4, 2025, allowed the Trump administration to immediately terminate two federal teacher-preparation grant programs.
John O'Connor/AP
Law & Courts Groups Sue Over Trump's Cuts to Education Department Research Arm
This suit seeks the restoration of Institute of Education Sciences staff and contracts abruptly canceled by the Trump administration.
3 min read
Supporters gather outside the U.S. Department of Education in Washington to applaud Education Department employees as they depart their offices for the final time on Friday, March 28, 2025. The rally brought together education supporters, students, parents, and former employees to honor the departing staff as they arrived in 30-minute intervals to collect their belongings.
Supporters gather outside the U.S. Department of Education in Washington to applaud Education Department employees as they depart their offices for the final time on Friday, March 28, 2025. Two organizations representing researchers are suing the department in an attempt to restore the agency's data and research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.
Moriah Ratner for Education Week