ERIC Number: EJ763274
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1539-9664
EISSN: N/A
Where Have All the Dollars Gone?: No Child Left Behind Lawsuit Fizzles
Bumsted, Brad
Education Next, v5 n1 p34-40 Win 2005
On December 11, 2003, the Reading, Pennsylvania, School District, on behalf of "their students and their schools," filed a "Petition for Review" with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. In filing this petition, Reading became the first school district in the nation to sue a state education department over the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. There were cheers throughout the land as NCLB critics predicted a flood of suits to follow. Amicus briefs were filed on Reading's behalf by the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teacher union; the Pennsylvania School Boards Association; and the Education Law Center-Pennsylvania. At first, Reading seemed like the perfect place from which to mount a challenge to the new federal law. It was one of the state's largest districts--with 16,500 students in 19 schools spread out over 9.6 square miles--and one of its most academically and demographically challenged. Reading's real credentials as a poster child for the anti-NCLB movement derived from its fiscal problems. The district could not pay its regular bills, let alone pay for NCLB. In fact, the once-prosperous transportation hub in southeastern Pennsylvania, like so many rust-belt towns, seemed to be a dying community and in no position to rescue a stranded school district. Without any assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Reading School District has no resources to implement any plan to improve student performance. It claimed that the state Department of Education had "failed to provide adequate technical assistance, including direct financial assistance"; nor did the state provide a standardized test in Spanish to allow for mandated subgroup testing. (Contains 3 figures.)
Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Court Litigation, State School District Relationship, Financial Support, State Aid
Hoover Institution. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Tel: 800-935-2882; Fax: 650-723-8626; e-mail: educationnext@hoover.stanford.edu; Web site: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Pennsylvania
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: No Child Left Behind Act 2001
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A