Opinion ID: 597854
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Education Consolidation and Improvement Act

Text: 18 Our review of a statutory scheme whose administration is committed to an agency of government is circumscribed by the mandate of Chevron U.S.A., Incorporated v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Incorporated, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). In Chevron, the Supreme Court set forth the now common two-step analysis for examining an agency's interpretation of a statute: 19 First, always is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administrative interpretation. Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute. 20 Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82 (footnotes omitted). Thus our first inquiry is whether § 2727(a) speaks clearly to the issue of Felton costs. If it does, then our statutory analysis is complete and we must adopt the construction chosen by Congress. Alternatively, if we determine that Congress has not clearly indicated its intent, then we must decide whether the Department's construction is permissible. 6 For the convenience of the reader, we set out once again the most relevant part of section 2727(a) of Title 20: 21 To the extent consistent with the number of educationally deprived children in the school district of the local educational agency who are enrolled in private elementary and secondary schools, such agency shall ... make provisions for including special educational services and arrangements (such as dual enrollment, educational radio and television, computer equipment and materials, other technology, and mobile educational services and equipment) in which children can participate.... 22 Expenditures for educational services and arrangements pursuant to this section for educationally deprived children in private schools shall be equal (taking into account the number of children to be served and the special educational needs of such children) to expenditures for children enrolled in the public schools of the local educational agency. 23 20 U.S.C. § 2727(a) (1988). 24 In interpreting this statutory text, the Chicago Board submits that the measure of equality for public and private school students is the term educational services and arrangements. In the Board's view, this term, more precisely the word arrangements, clearly covers Felton costs. In contrast, the Secretary takes the view that the term educational modifies both services and arrangements. Under this view, the arrangements that enter into the equal expenditures calculus are only those arrangements that are educational in nature. The Secretary also urges that the equal expenditures mandate must be read in conjunction with the statute as a whole. In this regard, he notes that section 2727(b) requires that both public and private schoolchildren participate in the program on an equitable basis. This congressional mandate, when read in light of the Supreme Court's holding in Wheeler v. Barrera, 417 U.S. 402, 94 S.Ct. 2274, 41 L.Ed.2d 159 (1974), requires, in the view of the Secretary, that the amount of expenditures available to all children for educational purposes be roughly the same. Wheeler interpreted Chapter 1, he points out, as requiring that the educational opportunities available under the statute be qualitatively and quantitatively comparable for all students regardless of the institution of their enrollment. Id. at 415, 420-21, 94 S.Ct. at 2282, 2284-85 (1974). This goal could not be achieved if the costs of compliance with Felton were charged only to the funds designated for the educational support of children attending sectarian schools. Such an arrangement, the Secretary continues, would impose an unfair burden upon the children who attend those schools. 25 Finally, the Secretary submits that his reading of the statute is the correct one because the statute also contains a separate section, section 2727(d), that authorizes the expenditure of funds for capital expenditures associated with the costs of complying with Felton's mandate. Congress' inclusion of this section within the statute, submits the Secretary, demonstrates that it considered compliance costs to be non-educational costs and therefore not part of the equal expenditures mandate of the statute. 26 While we believe that there is a great deal of force in the textual and structural analysis of the statute tendered by the Secretary, we cannot conclude that the intent of Congress is unambiguously expressed on the face of the statute. Therefore, following the mandate of Chevron, we must determine whether the Secretary, as the executive officer charged with the administration of the statute, has given the statute a reasonable construction. 7 As we have just noted, we believe that the Secretary's rendition of the text and his analysis go a long way toward ascertaining the intent of Congress with respect to the allocation of these compliance costs. The reasonableness of this interpretation is further supported by the legislative history that clearly manifests an intent that all recipients, regardless of the institution of their enrollment, be treated equally with respect to instructional opportunities. 8 We note that this emphasis on equal instructional opportunities by the Secretary is a long-standing one that has withstood the passage of many congressional sessions without a serious legislative suggestion that it is in error. 9 Moreover, compliance costs--costs incurred by a government agency to ensure that it does not violate the Constitution--hardly fit comfortably within the concept of educational benefits. As our colleagues in the Sixth Circuit have recently recognized in Barnes v. Cavazos, 966 F.2d 1056 (6th Cir.1992), it is inappropriate to regard the provision of neutral classrooms as the benefit of the Chapter 1 program. 27 Instead, the true benefit of this program is the provision of remedial education services to poor children desperately in need of such services.... 28 Id. at 1065. Quoting an earlier district court opinion, it continued: 29 The mobile classrooms are just a means of providing these services. In fact, if the costs of the mobile units were deducted only from the portion of funds earmarked for children attending parochial schools, those children would be receiving substantially less educational services than were the children in the public schools. This would be in violation of Chapter 1 itself, which requires that the services available to children be comparable, a provision explicitly upheld in Wheeler v. Barrera, 417 U.S. 402 [94 S.Ct. 2274, 41 L.Ed.2d 159] (1974). 30 Id. (quoting Walker v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 761 F.Supp. 1463, 1471-72 (N.D.Cal.1991)). 31 The Board argues that the Supreme Court's holding in Wheeler actually supports its assertion that Felton costs are arrangements under the Chapter 1 mandate for equal expenditures. The Board reaches this conclusion from the Court's grouping of both equipment and instruction as educational services and arrangements. However, the costs considered in Wheeler were costs which all schools--private and public--necessarily bear to achieve the institution's educational mission. Thus, there would be no reason not to allocate them to their respective ultimate beneficiaries in keeping with the goal of achieving equal educational opportunity; the amount of money spent upon equipment and instruction would be directly reflected in actual supplementary education. In contrast, the costs associated with maintaining a neutral site for sectarian students bear no relation to the actual amount of educational benefits received. A more natural reading of the equal benefits language adopted in Wheeler supports taking Felton costs off-the-top. Accordingly, under the deferential standard set forth in Chevron, we must conclude that the Secretary was not unreasonable in determining that Felton costs be deducted off-the-top. 32