While most Americans were celebrating our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness during the Fourth of July, the National Education Association was doing its best to make sure the right to an adequate public education will remain elusive.

Rather than work within the framework of the No Child Left Behind Act, the NEA has decided to file a lawsuit against the federal government.

Too bad their bottom line seems more concerned about money than kids.

The federal law isn't supposed to be an unfunded mandate but the reality is appropriations don't meet expenses. So, do we throw the baby out with the bath water because this year's shortfall is estimated to be $9 billion?

Given the option of either working with what they've got or fighting the process, the nation's largest teachers organization has opted to put on the boxing gloves. No surprise there.

"The major liability to states and school districts is going to be the corrective action for school improvement," says NEA policy analyst Michael Pons. That is, after all, what accountability is all about. But what about the major liability for kids in struggling schools and kids who are victims of social promotion in good schools? For far too many, a high school diploma is nothing more than a testimony they've sat in a seat almost 180 days a year for the past 12 years. And the worst part is many students don't even know they were denied an education. Good grades on report cards belie what they weren't taught.

The Cal State system is filled with students in remedial classes because of ignored problems in elementary schools, when kids are shuffled forward from one grade to the next, advanced from one school to another. Pushed forward, but not necessarily educated.

But rather than fix that entrenched problem, the NEA is opting to represent the interests of the schools that continue to fail our children. Hardly a professional approach. But, since No Child Left Behind has become a political football, this lawsuit is one sure way to confuse the situation.

"We wouldn't file if we didn't believe there was potential under the law for a suit," says Pons. "At the very least it helps to draw attention (to the situation)."

Coincidentally, the suit in federal district court, which the NEA hopes will be joined by states and local school districts should be filed this summer, just about the same time Congress is addressing the issue.

"It raises some very serious issues," Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, says of the NEA action. "We'll slug this (funding) out in the next couple of weeks in the Congress." As the debate proceeds, we'll finally find out just how much America's leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, are committed to educating our next generation.

"You end up with the status quo if you don't do it right," warns Miller. As a long-time education advocate and a key negotiator in the original bipartisan agreement to improve the country's education system, he sees the current financial situation as a key sticking point.

"When No Child Left Behind was passed, the whole idea was we were going to put in the most far-reaching reforms," said Miller. "In exchange for reforms, we were going to fund this act. Well, he (Bush) hasn't kept his word. These were serious reforms with serious consequences."

So now, just when impacts were being realized, it seems No Child Left Behind has become nothing more than an us-vs.-them, Dems-vs.-GOP, union-vs.-administration battle.

And in the end the only winners will be the lawyers and the losers, once again, will be America's children.