Parents cannot sue over NCLB compliance
Posted by Jeffrey Roy on November 21, 2008
A federal appeals court ruled that parents cannot sue school districts to force them to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act. The ruling came in a case filed against the low-performing Newark Public Schools in New Jersey. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said “enforcement of the act is up to state educational agencies.”
The parents claimed that, in contravention of the Act, they were never notified (or received insufficient notification) of (1) the fact that their children were enrolled in deficient schools, (2) their right to transfer from failing schools to non-failing schools, (3) their right to request supplemental educational services under the Act and to receive certain information about providers of such services, and (4) their right to request information about the professional qualifications of the teachers instructing their children.
The court noted that Congress enacted the Act “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.” But, it ruled that the Act does not confer a right of action enforceable by individuals or individual providers of supplemental educational services. In the decision, the court reasoned that while the reference to “all children” could ostensibly be read as a proclamation that each and every child shall have certain rights, Congress did not refer to the individual rights of each and every child.
Click here to view a copy of the court’s 26 page decision.
