Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager opined last week that Wisconsin can exempt itself from No Child Left Behind on the grounds that the law is not fully funded and encroaches on state control of education. Her opinion practically dared states and districts to sue the federal government to invalidate the law, and critics took up the call immediately, with Stan Johnson, of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, calling on states to "go to court to correct this injustice." We could have saved the people of Wisconsin from the bother of an opinion, since we've been saying for two years that any state that wants to can forego Title I funds if it doesn't want to enact NCLB testing and teacher quality requirements. (Note, though, Lautenschlager did not suggest that Wisconsin exempt itself from the $293 million in extra Title I funding it will receive next year under NCLB.) The timing of this opinion is a tad suspicious, coming just as President Bush was touring the upper Midwest and touting NCLB and as fellow Democrat John Kerry was blasting the law as an unfunded mandate. (And as Lautenschlager is reeling from a drunk driving arrest and reports that she twice damaged her state-issued car.) Justice may be blind, but this opinion, we suspect, is all politics.
"No Child Left Behind may not be enforceable, Lautenschlager says," by Alan Borsuk, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, May 13, 2004
"Attorney: Feds can't force education act on states," by Todd Richmond, Associated Press, May 18, 2004