This morning a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a school district challenge to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. I hope to have more to say on this later today, and I am sure this is not the last we will hear of this case. In the meantime, here’s the opening of the majority opinion by Judge Cole (joined by Judge Breen, sitting by designation).
This case requires us to decide a fundamental question of federal versus state funding under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (“NCLB” or “the Act”), 20 U.S.C. §§ 6301–7941. Plaintiffs-Appellants are school districts and education associations that receive federal funding under NCLB in exchange for complying with the Act’s various educational requirements and accountability measures. Based on the so-called “Unfunded Mandates Provision,” which provides that “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed to . . . mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act,” 20 U.S.C. § 7907(a), Plaintiffs filed suit in district court against the Secretary of Education seeking, among other relief, a judgment declaring that they need not comply with the Act’s requirements where federal funds do not cover the increased costs of compliance. The district court concluded, however, that Plaintiffs must comply with the Act’s requirements regardless of any federal-funding shortfall and accordingly granted the Secretary’s motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Because statutes enacted under the Spending Clause of the United States Constitution must provide clear notice to the States of their liabilities should they decide to accept federal funding under those statutes, and because we conclude that NCLB fails to provide clear notice as to who bears the additional costs of compliance, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
And here is the conclusion of Judge Cole’s opinion.
The No Child Left Behind Act rests on the most laudable of goals: to “ensure that all children
have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education.” 20 U.S.C. § 6301. Nobody challenges that aim. But a state official deciding to participate in NCLB could reasonably read § 7907(a) to mean that her State need not comply with requirements that are “not paid for under the Act” through federal funds. Thus, Congress has not “spoke[n] so clearly that we can fairly say that the State[s] could make an informed choice” to participate in the Act with the knowledge that they would have to comply with the Act’s requirements regardless of federal funding. See Pennhurst, 451 U.S. at 25. Of course, if that ultimately is what Congress intended, the ball is properly left in its court to make that clear. See Arlington, 126 S. Ct. at 2465 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (“The ball, I conclude, is properly left in Congress’ court to provide, if it so elects, for consultant fees and testing expenses beyond those IDEA and its implementing regulations already authorize, along with any specifications, conditions, or limitations geared to those fees and expenses Congress may deem appropriate.”)(footnote omitted). Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ complaint and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Finally, here is a taste of Judge McKeague’s dissent:
While the federal government historically has always contributed a relatively small amount to the total funding of local education, increasingly it has become concerned about the decline in the quality of children’s education, particularly with respect to the nation’s most at-risk children. In an attempt to achieve more accountability in local education, Congress passed the NCLB, which revised the earlier Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (“ESEA”), Pub. L. No. 89-10,
79 Stat. 27 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. §§ 6301-7941). Although participation in the NCLB is voluntary, Congress imposed significant educational reforms for those states that elect to participate and receive federal funds. Today the majority holds, in an opinion contrary to the way our nation’s education has been operated and funded for centuries, that Congress could have intended that the federal government now fund the entire cost of various educational reforms for our nation’s children. Because there is no support in the text or context of the NCLB for the proposition that Congress intended such a monumental and unprecedented change in our nation’s education funding, I respectfully dissent.