Resource: Renee v. Duncan

In August 2007, Public Advocates and Goodwin Procter, representing Californians for Justice, California ACORN and several parents and students, sued the United States Department of Education and the Secretary of Education for violating the teacher quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In the first lawsuit of its kind, the plaintiffs argued that a Department regulation had created a major loophole in NCLB that defied the will of Congress and harmed students nationwide by defining teachers-in-training enrolled in alternative route teacher certification programs as “highly qualified teachers.” In California, these alternative route teachers-in-training are called “interns.”