NEA files suit over No Child Left Behind Act

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

This morning's announcement that the nation's largest teachers' union would challenge the federal No Child Left Behind Act in U.S. District Court came as little surprise to state and local education officials in Nevada.

"There has been widespread dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind both in terms of funding and the evaluative methods being used," said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Clark County School District.

"The underlying goals of the law, that instruction must be improved and the achievement gap reduced, no one is disagreeing with that. But the process is so negative that even schools that are doing an outstanding job are being labeled 'needs improvement' and that's causing a terrible morale problem."

The National Education Association has for years been threatening legal action over what it called inequities and "unfunded mandates."

NEA President Reg Weaver, in a telephone conference with reporters this morning, told the Sun that the long-planned lawsuit was not affected by the recent announcement by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings that changes would make it easier for states to comply with certain aspects of the federal education law.

Under the original terms of the federal act, Nevada should receive more than $181 million in education funding for the 2006 fiscal year, according to the NEA's lawsuit. But the budget submitted by Bush to Congress calls for Nevada to receive just $105.7 million, according to the NEA, a difference of $76 million.

Funding for several programs was eliminated entirely under the president's budget, including state grants for vocational education and educational technology.

For the 2005 fiscal year, the Silver State received $2.5 million in educational technology grants, said Doug Thunder, deputy superintendent of administrative and fiscal services for the Nevada Education Department.

Nevada officials had hoped to at least receive the same amount for 2006, if not the full $5.1 million originally authorized, Thunder said.

That money is badly needed to help rural school districts update computers and train teachers in the latest software, Thunder said.

The 1997 state Legislature approved $35 million in technology grants for schools but those dollars are "long gone," Thunder said.

"We were able to buy a lot of computers but it's eight years later and a lot of the equipment is obsolete," Thunder said. "The loss of those federal dollars is disastrous."

There appears to be some good news for Nevada and other states regarding vocational education programs. The Republican-controlled Senate disagreed with the president's recommendation to eliminate the program entirely and voted to provide $1.5 billion in funding. If the House also approves the allocation in its budget, Nevada could see $8 million in federal funding for vocational programs restored.

"We have reports that show how successful our vocational students have been in terms of graduation rates and future careers," Thunder said. "We couldn't understand why the president would want to zero-out funding for those programs. Apparently Congress couldn't understand it, either."

Nevada's funding shortfall will become more apparent, and more difficult to overcome, as more schools fail to make "adequate yearly progress" under the law, Thunder said. Nevada currently has 126 schools on the "watch list" for failing to make AYP for one year and 122 schools labeled "needs improvement" for failing to make AYP for at least two consecutive years.

The state is required to fund remedial programs for "needs improvement" schools and send teams to evaluate the quality of instruction and staff.

"It's entirely possible that more and more schools aren't going to make AYP and we aren't going to be able to provide those additional services," Thunder said. "That's when the under-funding is going to really come into play."

The Clark County School District, which accounts for about 70 percent of the state's student enrollment, is also bracing for a shortfall of federal funding for special programs and services. Potentially affected programs include the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program, remedial literacy classes for middle school and high school students and a program that teaches students to use mediation as a means of conflict resolution.

Diane Efthimiou, director of grant development and administration for the district, said efforts are being made to scrape together dollars from alternate sources.

"Everybody's going to have to pay attention to their budgets and hold tight while we do everything we can to leverage funding to keep things going," Efthimiou said. "Where we're cutting is administrative costs. We have every intention of keeping those programs intact."