The state of Connecticut has filed a lawsuit stating that "No Child Left Behind" is illegal because it is an unfunded mandate, requiring standardized tests that the federal government does not pay for.
I find this lawsuit interesting because it is the first state that has filed a lawsuit, instead of yet another advocacy group (such as the National Education Association) with their own agenda. I also find it interesting because the state of Connecticut has been viewed in the past and "in general" as a state that has quality public education. I wonder if any other states will go this route. I know that several states are considered "hot spots", including right here in Virginia.
Personally, I cannot see what sort of additional gain can possibly be in place here in Virginia since we already have state testing (called the Standards of Learning, or SOL -- what a bad acronym!) in place. Yes, some students are not subject to SOL testing -- but should a student that just arrived in this country be required to take and pass an exam in English in the first place?
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I'm still trying to figure out the details, but I think the big difference between the NCLB and SOL rules is that SOL doesn't look at subgroups within schools. So, a large school could pass the SOLs because of its overall passing rate, but fail under NCLB because a specific ethnic group didn't pass.
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