The Hartford Courant reported last week on the federal court dismissal of three of the state’s four claims about Margaret Spellings’s denial of waivers for the testing in Connecticut. A reader might find the title—State’s ‘No Child’ Lawsuit Still Alive—a little odd, but the headline is accurate. Technically, the judge said that courts couldn’t rule on the legality of a DoE action until the DoE actually ruled that Connecticut was violating the law and then reduced Title I funding to the state.
State A.G. Richard Blumenthal said he’ll appeal, and that’s one of two ways that the 3 dismissed counts can be reinstated. The other would be for the feds to dun the state some money, which could moot the judge’s concerns about ruling prematurely.
I suspect Blumenthal’s appeal won’t be successful (just gut instinct, no legal analysis), and Spellings won’t give Blumenthal a chance to get the more substantive path in to court by reducing Connecticut’s funds. Ironically, the legal incentive right now is for Spellings to give Connecticut a free pass by ignoring whatever the state does.