The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, announced today that it has filed suit against the U.S. Education Department on requirements in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law. Charging that the federal government is not providing the funds necessary for the annual student testing required by the law, the teachers’ group and school districts in three states are asking the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to grant an injunction declaring that school districts are not required to spend non-NCLB funds to comply with the NCLB mandate. They also ask that the court enjoin Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and “any other officer or employee of ED” from withholding from states and school districts any funds they are entitled to under the NCLB “because of a failure to comply with the mandates of the NCLB” if that failure to comply is attributable to the states’ or districts’ refusal to spend non-NCLB funds to achieve compliance. The lawsuit details the experiences of a number of states and school systems in trying to meet NCLB requirements and charges that the administration’s failure to provide funding for testing constitutes an “unfunded mandate” that’s specifically forbidden in the law. The lawsuit was filed against Education Secretary Margaret Spellings by schools and school districts in Michigan, Texas, and Vermont, and by the National Education Association and its affiliates in 10 states.