About the Lawsuit

A Brief Summary of Pontiac v. Spellings

The Promise

Section 9527(a) of the No Child Left Behind law:

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the Federal government to . . . mandate a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act.

The Plaintiffs

A diverse network of school districts and education associations is asking the court to declare that the law means what it says and and that it prevent the U.S. Department of Education from denying federal funds to states and school districts that refuse to spend their own money on the law's regulations.

The Regulations

The law is roughly 1,100 pages and includes thousands of pages of additional rules and expensive regulations. These regulations form a bureaucratic maze, often to the point of costly absurdity. For example, newly arrived immigrant students can be exempted from taking the standardized reading test, but not the math test. The absence of just two students on testing day can give an entire school a federal failing label. Practically every school must meet all of 37 separate criteria, with no difference in the result for a school that meets 36 of 37 criteria, versus a school that only meets one criterion. Students can transfer from a "failing" school to a neighboring school, even if that other school is severely overcrowded, and the failing school's district has to pay the transfer costs.

How Children Are Affected

This massive shortfall forces states and school districts to divert money from educational priorities, such as reducing class size, retaining the best teachers, or buying the most up-to-date classroom materials.

A recent study estimated that the costs to Texas to meet the law's regulations will run $1.2 billion annually, diverting roughly $300 per student in tax dollars from classrooms to meeting federal rules and regulations. Across the country, social studies, art, music and other programs are cut because of the focus on passing high-stakes standardized tests. It's easy to see why a growing number of school districts are finding their money and staff resources drained by the law's rules and regulations.

The Proof

Recent studies by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) both agreed that states don't have to spend their taxpayers' money on the regulations. In other words, the states should not be required to pay for any cost for which they are not provided federal funds. Government and academic researchers have estimated the costs for 10 states, and in each case they show regulatory costs running to tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

The Hope

The Plaintiffs are not asking the court to bring down the law. The best court remedy would be to relieve schools of the current, illegal obligation to spend their money following the No Child Left Behind regulations.

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