Ethics Newsline®

HARTFORD, Connecticut
Connecticut last week announced that it will sue the U.S. government for allegedly under-funding the demands imposed by testing requirement in President Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law.

Connecticut’s move makes it the first state to sue over NCLB requirements, though scattered school districts have filed challenges and other states have been grumbling, reported the New York Times.

Most of the complaints charge the federal government with failing to fund NCLB’s mandates, as required by law, while others target the Department of Education for failing to allow the states wanted flexibility in meeting the law’s goals.

Connecticut last week said both elements were behind its lawsuit, noting that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has refused the state’s request to test students on a schedule the state says is already effective.

Spellings followed her January rejection of that request with a March 20 opinion piece in the Hartford Courant that struck many of the state’s residents and educators as condescending, noted the Times.

Last week, Connecticut fired back by suing Spellings’ agency and the U.S. government over NCLB’s high costs, which the state estimates will cost $41.6 million more than the government has provided.

“This law imposes an illegal, unconscionable, unfunded mandate,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal charged. “It fails the test of both statutory and constitutional standards, as well as fundamental fairness.”

A Department of Education spokeswoman dismissed the planned suit as based on “a flawed cost study … that creates inflated projections built upon questionable estimates and misallocation of costs.”

Blumenthal refused to blink last week, saying the state was announcing the planned suit in advance of filing in case other states cared to join the legal action, noted the Times.

“The federal government’s approach with this law is illegal and unconstitutional,” Blumenthal told the paper. “There is burgeoning unhappiness among both Republicans and Democrats. The dissatisfaction is felt across the country and is across the board, politically.”