Midwest Education Law

The McPherson School District has received a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 – the first such waiver in Kansas and probably the entire country. The Kansas school district asked the federal government for the waiver in September and was informed last week that the request had been granted.

McPherson Superintendent Randy Watson told the Kansas City Star that the district had not struggled to comply with NCLB, but the district anticipated it would in the future as NCLB’s requirements of the percentage of students required to meet grade-level standards increases. Thanks to the waiver from NCLB, McPherson will track its older students’ achievement by using tests developed by the same group that administers the ACT college entrance exams. The district will still have to show progress using the alternative exams, but it will be able to bypass NCLB’s 100-percent goal with its older students.

The Supreme Court of Missouri this week upheld the constitutionality of a federal law that provides immunity from civil liability for teachers and administrators. Congress enacted the Paul D. Coverdell Teacher Protection Act as part of the No Child Left Behind Reforms of 2001, but the Act has rarely been addressed by courts. The Act’s purpose is to provide teachers, principals, and other school professionals the ability to undertake reasonable actions to maintain order, discipline, and an appropriate educational environment without fear of civil liability. The Act provides immunity for teachers who, among other things, act within the scope of their employment and in conformity with federal, state, and local law.

In Dydell v. Taylor, the Missouri Supreme Court first upheld the constitutionality of the Coverdell Act and then held that the Act provided immunity from suit to former Kansas City, Missouri School District superintendent Bernard Taylor, who was sued for allegedly negligently permitting a student to assault another student. The plaintiff argued that Taylor had violated district policy, making the Act’s immunity inapplicable. The Court disagreed, saying that violating district policy was not sufficient to revoke the Act’s protection and that, nonetheless, there was no evidence that Taylor violated district policy anyway.

The Supreme Court has rejected the opportunity to consider the appeal of the NEA and school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont challenging the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as an unfunded mandate.  The Court issued its refusal without comment.

The appeal in the case, School District of the City of Pontiac v. Duncan (Case No. 09-852), focused on a provision in NCLB that explicitly prohibits requiring states or school districts "to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act."  The NEA wanted the Supreme Court to consider whether this language would also prevent the Department of Education from requiring states to spend their own funds to meet NCLB requirements.  The suit was initially filed during the Bush Administration.  However, the Obama Administration's Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, filed a brief on behalf of the Department of Education's Secretary Arne Duncan urging the Court to decline review of the case.  Kagan has since stepped aside from her Solicitor General position while her nomination to the Supreme Court is pending.  The Administration argued that the NCLB expressly moves away from dictating funding levels and instead provides states with "unprecedented flexibility to target federal dollars to meet state and local priorities."

The case came to the Court after an 8-8 deadlock decision in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the original dismissal of the case in 2005 by a federal district court intact.