News Release

NEA Stands Up for Children and Parents, Files
First-Ever National Lawsuit Against Administration
for Not Paying for Education Regulations

Parents Want Feds Accountable for Law's Requirements

WASHINGTON - Today, a diverse network of school districts, the National Education Association (NEA) and several state education associations filed the first-ever national lawsuit to force the Bush Administration to pay the costs of its own rules and regulations under the No Child Left Behind law.
 
"Today we're standing up for children, whose parents are saying, 'No more' to costly federal regulations that drain money from classrooms and spend it on paperwork, bureaucracy and big testing companies," said NEA President Reg Weaver. "The principle of the law is simple; if you regulate, you have to pay."

The plaintiffs represent several school districts in Vermont, Texas and Michigan as well as the nation's largest teacher's organization. These groups say they are filing the suit because the Administration has not heeded its own demands of accountability which states:

"Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State, local education agency, or school's curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of State or local resources, or mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act."

The suit, Pontiac School District v. Spellings, was filed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. It was unveiled at simultaneous news conferences in Laredo, Texas; Pontiac, Michigan; and Washington, DC.

At all three events, parents of school children from some of the communities involved in the suit spoke about the effects the rules and regulations have had on their children's classrooms.

"The school district has to pay for this law, and it is taking away from my child's classroom subjects like music, art, foreign languages, social studies, and sports," said Jose Zuniga, a parent from Laredo, Texas. "Those activities are being replaced with high-stakes, high-stress tests that don't help my child learn."

Since the law's enactment in 2002, there has been a $27 billion funding shortfall in what Congress was supposed to provide schools to meet the law's regulations and what has been funded. Cost studies in Ohio and Texas estimate that the price of the regulations to state taxpayers could run as high as $1.5 and $1.2 billion, respectively.

For more information about the lawsuit, visit: www.nea.org/lawsuit

April 20, 2005

For more information, contact:

Denise Cardinal, NEA Public Relations, (202) 822-7239
Andy Linebaugh, NEA Public Relations, (202) 822-7200

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The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, college faculty, school administrators, education support professionals, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.

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