ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 89 et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION et al.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
81 OCTOBER TERM, 2006
Syllabus
ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 89 et al. v.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the tenth circuit
No. 05–1508. Argued January 10, 2007—Decided April 17, 2007
The Federal Impact Aid Program provides financial assistance to local
school districts whose ability to finance public school education is ad
versely affected by a federal presence. The statute prohibits a State
from offsetting this federal aid by reducing state aid to a local district.
To avoid unreasonably interfering with a state program that seeks to
equalize per-pupil expenditures, the statute contains an exception per
mitting a State to reduce its own local funding on account of the federal
aid where the Secretary of Education finds that the state program
“equalizes expenditures” among local school districts. 20 U. S. C.
§ 7709(b)(1). The Secretary is required to use a formula that compares
the local school district with the greatest per-pupil expenditures in a
State to the school district with the smallest per-pupil expenditures. If
the former does not exceed the latter by more than 25 percent, the state
program qualifies as one that “equalizes expenditures.” In making
this determination, the Secretary must, inter alia, “disregard [school
districts] with per-pupil expenditures . . . above the 95th percentile
or below the 5th percentile of such expenditures in the State.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(i). Regulations first promulgated 30 years ago provide
that the Secretary will first create a list of school districts ranked in
order of per-pupil expenditure; then identify the relevant percentile cut
off point on that list based on a specific (95th or 5th) percentile of student
population—essentially identifying those districts whose students ac
count for the 5 percent of the State’s total student population that lies
at both the high and low ends of the spending distribution; and finally
compare the highest spending and lowest spending of the remaining
school districts to see whether they satisfy the statute’s requirement
that the disparity between them not exceed 25 percent.
Using this formula, Department of Education officials ranked New
Mexico’s 89 local school districts in order of per-pupil spending for fiscal
year 1998, excluding 17 schools at the top because they contained (cumu
latively) less than 5 percent of the student population and an additional
6 districts at the bottom. The remaining 66 districts accounted for ap
proximately 90 percent of the State’s student population. Because the

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
82 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Syllabus
disparity between the highest and lowest of the remaining districts was
less than 25 percent, the State’s program “equalize[d] expenditures,”
and the State could offset federal impact aid by reducing its aid to indi
vidual districts. Seeking further review, petitioner school districts
(Zuni) claimed that the calculations were correct under the regulations,
but that the regulations were inconsistent with the authorizing statute
because the Department must calculate the 95th and 5th percentile cut
offs based solely on the number of school districts without considering
the number of pupils in those districts. A Department Administrative
Law Judge and the Secretary both rejected this challenge, and the en
banc Tenth Circuit ultimately affirmed.
Held: The statute permits the Secretary to identify the school districts
that should be “disregard[ed]” by looking to the number of the district’s
pupils as well as to the size of the district’s expenditures per pupil.
Pp. 89–100.
(a) The “disregard” instruction’s history and purpose indicate that the
Secretary’s calculation formula is a reasonable method that carries out
Congress’ likely intent in enacting the statutory provision. For one
thing, that method is the kind of highly technical, specialized interstitial
matter that Congress does not decide itself, but delegates to specialized
agencies to decide. For another, the statute’s history strongly supports
the Secretary. The present statutory language originated in draft leg
islation sent by the Secretary himself, which Congress adopted without
comment or clarification. No one at the time—no Member of Congress,
no Department of Education official, no school district or State—ex
pressed the view that this statutory language was intended to require,
or did require, the Secretary to change the Department’s system of cal
culation, a system that the Department and school districts across the
Nation had followed for nearly 20 years. Finally, the purpose of the
disregard instruction, which is evident in the language of the present
statute, is to exclude statistical outliers. Viewed in terms of this pur
pose, the Secretary’s calculation method is reasonable, while the reason
ableness of Zuni’s proposed method is more doubtful as the then-
Commissioner of Education explained when he considered the matter in
1976. Pp. 89–93.
(b) The Secretary’s method falls within the scope of the statute’s plain
language. Neither the legislative history nor the reasonableness of the
Secretary’s method would be determinative if the statute’s plain lan
guage unambiguously indicated Congress’ intent to foreclose the Secre
tary’s interpretation. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
83 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Syllabus
Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842–843. That is not the case here.
Section 7709(b)(2)(B)(i)’s phrase “above the 95th percentile . . . of . . .
[per-pupil] expenditures” (emphasis added) limits the Secretary to cal
culation methods involving per-pupil expenditures. It does not tell the
Secretary which of several possible methods the Department must use,
nor rule out the Secretary’s present formula, which distributes districts
in accordance with per-pupil expenditures, while essentially weighting
each district to reflect the number of pupils it contains. This interpre
tation is supported by dictionary definitions of “percentile,” and by the
fact that Congress, in other statutes, has clarified the matter at issue to
avoid comparable ambiguity. Moreover, “[a]mbiguity is a creature not
[just] of definitional possibilities but [also] of statutory context.”
Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118. Context here indicates that both
students and school districts are of concern to the statute, and, thus, the
disregard instruction can include within its scope the distribution of a
ranked population consisting of pupils (or of school districts weighted
by pupils), not just a ranked distribution of unweighted school districts
alone. Finally, this Court is reassured by the fact that no group of
statisticians, nor any individual statistician, has said directly in briefs,
or indirectly through citation, that the language in question cannot be
read the way it is interpreted here. Pp. 93–100.
437 F. 3d 1289, affirmed.
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens,
Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a concur
ring opinion, post, p. 104. Kennedy, J., filed a concurring opinion, in
which Alito, J., joined, post, p. 107. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined, and in which Souter, J.,
joined as to Part I, post, p. 108. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p. 123.
Ronald J. VanAmberg argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were C. Bryant Rogers and George
W. Kozeliski.
Sri Srinivasan argued the cause for the federal respond
ent. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement,
Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Deputy Solicitor Gen
eral Kneedler, Peter R. Maier, Kent D. Talbert, and Stephen
H. Freid.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
84 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
Leigh M. Manasevit, Special Assistant Attorney General
of New Mexico, argued the cause for the state respondent.
With him on the brief was Willie R. Brown.*
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
A federal statute sets forth a method that the Secretary
of Education is to use when determining whether a State’s
public school funding program “equalizes expenditures”
throughout the State. The statute instructs the Secretary
to calculate the disparity in per-pupil expenditures among
local school districts in the State. But, when doing so, the
Secretary is to “disregard” school districts “with per-pupil
expenditures . . . above the 95th percentile or below the 5th
percentile of such expenditures . . . in the State.” 20 U. S. C.
§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) (emphasis added).
The question before us is whether the emphasized statu
tory language permits the Secretary to identify the school
districts that should be “disregard[ed]” by looking to the
number of the district’s pupils as well as to the size of the
district’s expenditures per pupil. We conclude that it does.
I
A
The federal Impact Aid Act, 108 Stat. 3749, as amended,
20 U. S. C. § 7701 et seq., provides financial assistance to local
school districts whose ability to finance public school educa
tion is adversely affected by a federal presence. Federal aid
is available to districts, for example, where a significant
amount of federal land is exempt from local property taxes,
or where the federal presence is responsible for an increase
in school-age children (say, of armed forces personnel) whom
*Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the State of Alaska by Craig
J. Tillery, Acting Attorney General, and Kathleen Strasbaugh, Assistant
Attorney General; and for New Mexico Public School Districts by Thomas
C. Bird.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
85 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
local schools must educate. See § 7701 (2000 ed. and Supp.
IV). The statute typically prohibits a State from offsetting
this federal aid by reducing its own state aid to the local
district. If applied without exceptions, however, this prohi
bition might unreasonably interfere with a state program
that seeks to equalize per-pupil expenditures throughout the
State, for instance, by preventing the state program from
taking account of a significant source of federal funding that
some local school districts receive. The statute conse
quently contains an exception that permits a State to com
pensate for federal impact aid where “the Secretary [of Edu
cation] determine[s] and certifies . . . that the State has in
effect a program of State aid that equalizes expenditures
for free public education among local [school districts] in the
State.” § 7709(b)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis added).
The statute sets out a formula that the Secretary of Edu
cation must use to determine whether a state aid program
satisfies the federal “equaliz[ation]” requirement. The for
mula instructs the Secretary to compare the local school dis
trict with the greatest per-pupil expenditures to the school
district with the smallest per-pupil expenditures to see
whether the former exceeds the latter by more than 25 per
cent. So long as it does not, the state aid program qualifies
as a program that “equalizes expenditures.” More specifi
cally the statute provides that “a program of state aid” quali
fies, i. e., it “equalizes expenditures” among local school dis
tricts if,
“in the second fiscal year preceding the fiscal year for
which the determination is made, the amount of per
pupil expenditures made by [the local school district]
with the highest such per-pupil expenditures . . . did
not exceed the amount of such per-pupil expenditures
made by [the local school district] with the lowest
such expenditures . . . by more than 25 percent.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(A) (2000 ed.).

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
86 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
The statutory provision goes on to set forth what we shall
call the “disregard” instruction. It states that, when “mak
ing” this “determination,” the “Secretary shall . . . disregard
[school districts] with per-pupil expenditures . . . above the
95th percentile or below the 5th percentile of such expendi
tures.” § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) (emphasis added). It adds that
the Secretary shall further
“take into account the extent to which [the state pro
gram reflects the special additional costs that some
school districts must bear when they are] geographically
isolated [or when they provide education for] particular
types of students, such as children with disabilities.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(ii).
B
This case requires us to decide whether the Secretary’s
present calculation method is consistent with the federal
statute’s “disregard” instruction. The method at issue is
contained in a set of regulations that the Secretary first pro
mulgated 30 years ago. Those regulations essentially state
the following:
When determining whether a state aid program “equalizes
expenditures” (thereby permitting the State to reduce its
own local funding on account of federal impact aid), the Sec
retary will first create a list of school districts ranked in
order of per-pupil expenditure. The Secretary will then
identify the relevant percentile cutoff point on that list on
the basis of a specific (95th or 5th) percentile of student popu
lation—essentially identifying those districts whose stu
dents account for the 5 percent of the State’s total student
population that lies at both the high and low ends of the
spending distribution. Finally the Secretary will compare
the highest spending and lowest spending school districts of
those that remain to see whether they satisfy the statute’s
requirement that the disparity between them not exceed 25
percent.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
87 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
The regulations set forth this calculation method as
follows:
“[D]eterminations of disparity in current expenditures
. . . per-pupil are made by—
“(i) Ranking all [of the State’s school districts] on the
basis of current expenditures . . . per pupil [in the rele
vant statutorily determined year];
“(ii) Identifying those [school districts] that fall at the
95th and 5th percentiles of the total number of pupils
in attendance [at all the State’s school districts taken
together]; and
“(iii) Subtracting the lower current expenditure . . .
per pupil figure from the higher for those [school dis
tricts] identified in paragraph (ii) and dividing the differ
ence by the lower figure.” 34 CFR pt. 222, subpt. K,
App., ¶ 1 (2006).
The regulations also provide an illustration of how to per
form the calculation:
“In State X, after ranking all [school districts] in order
of the expenditures per pupil for the [statutorily deter
mined] fiscal year in question, it is ascertained by count
ing the number of pupils in attendance in those [school
districts] in ascending order of expenditure that the 5th
percentile of student population is reached at [school dis
trict A] with a per pupil expenditure of $820, and that
the 95th percentile of student population is reached at
[school district B] with a per pupil expenditure of $1,000.
The percentage disparity between the 95th percentile
and the 5th percentile [school districts] is 22 percent
($1000 − $820 = $180/$820).” Ibid.
Because 22 percent is less than the statutory “25 percent”
requirement, the state program in the example qualifies as a
program that “equalizes expenditures.”

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
88 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
C
This case concerns the Department of Education’s applica
tion of the Secretary’s regulations to New Mexico’s local dis
trict aid program in respect to fiscal year 2000. As the reg
ulations require, Department officials listed each of New
Mexico’s 89 local school districts in order of per-pupil spend
ing for fiscal year 1998. (The calculation in New Mexico’s
case was performed, as the statute allows, on the basis of
per-pupil revenues, rather than per-pupil expenditures. See
20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(A). See also Appendix B, infra.
For ease of reference we nevertheless refer, in respect to
New Mexico’s figures and throughout the opinion, only to
“per-pupil expenditures.”) After ranking the districts, De
partment officials excluded 17 school districts at the top of
the list because those districts contained (cumulatively) less
than 5 percent of the student population; for the same reason,
they excluded an additional 6 school districts at the bottom
of the list.
The remaining 66 districts accounted for approximately 90
percent of the State’s student population. Of those, the
highest ranked district spent $3,259 per student; the lowest
ranked district spent $2,848 per student. The difference,
$411, was less than 25 percent of the lowest per-pupil figure,
namely, $2,848. Hence, the officials found that New Mexico’s
local aid program qualifies as a program that “equalizes ex
penditures.” New Mexico was therefore free to offset fed
eral impact aid to individual districts by reducing state aid
to those districts.
Two of New Mexico’s public school districts, Zuni Public
School District and Gallup-McKinley County Public School
District (whom we shall collectively call Zuni), sought fur
ther agency review of these findings. Zuni conceded that
the Department’s calculations were correct in terms of the
Department’s own regulations. Zuni argued, however, that
the regulations themselves are inconsistent with the author
izing statute. That statute, in its view, requires the Depart

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
89 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
ment to calculate the 95th and 5th percentile cutoffs solely
on the basis of the number of school districts (ranked by their
per-pupil expenditures), without any consideration of the
number of pupils in those districts. If calculated as Zuni
urges, only 10 districts (accounting for less than 2 percent of
all students) would have been identified as the outliers that
the statute instructs the Secretary to disregard. The differ
ence, as a result, between the highest and lowest per-pupil
expenditures of the remaining districts (26.9 percent) would
exceed 25 percent. Consequently, the statute would forbid
New Mexico to take account of federal impact aid as it de
cides how to equalize school funding across the State. See
N. M. Stat. Ann. § 22–8–1 et seq. (2006).
A Department of Education Administrative Law Judge re
jected Zuni’s challenge to the regulations. The Secretary of
Education did the same. Zuni sought review of the Secre
tary’s decision in the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
393 F. 3d 1158 (2004). Initially, a Tenth Circuit panel af
firmed the Secretary’s determination by a split vote (2 to 1).
Subsequently, the full Court of Appeals vacated the panel’s
decision and heard the matter en banc. The 12-member en
banc court affirmed the Secretary but by an evenly divided
court (6 to 6). 437 F. 3d 1289 (2006) (per curiam). Zuni
sought certiorari. We agreed to decide the matter.
II
A
Zuni’s strongest argument rests upon the literal language
of the statute. Zuni concedes, as it must, that if the lan
guage of the statute is open or ambiguous—that is, if Con
gress left a “gap” for the agency to fill—then we must uphold
the Secretary’s interpretation as long as it is reasonable.
See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842–843 (1984). See also Chris
tensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 589, n. (Scalia, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment). For pur

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
90 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
poses of exposition, we depart from a normal order of discus
sion, namely, an order that first considers Zuni’s statutory
language argument. See Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534
U. S. 438, 450 (2002). Instead, because of the technical na
ture of the language in question, we shall first examine the
provision’s background and basic purposes. That discussion
will illuminate our subsequent analysis in Part II–B, infra.
It will also reveal why Zuni concentrates its argument upon
language alone.
Considerations other than language provide us with un
usually strong indications that Congress intended to leave
the Secretary free to use the calculation method before us
and that the Secretary’s chosen method is a reasonable one.
For one thing, the matter at issue—i. e., the calculation
method for determining whether a state aid program “equal
izes expenditures”—is the kind of highly technical, special
ized interstitial matter that Congress often does not decide
itself, but delegates to specialized agencies to decide. See
United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 234 (2001);
cf. MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Tele
phone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 231 (1994); Christensen,
supra, at 589, n. (opinion of Scalia, J.).
For another thing, the history of the statute strongly
supports the Secretary. Congress first enacted an impact
aid “equalization” exception in 1974. The exception origi
nally provided that the “ter[m] . . . ‘equaliz[ing] expenditures’
. . . shall be defined by the [Secretary].” 20 U. S. C.
§ 240(d)(2)(B) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Soon thereafter, in 1976,
the Secretary promulgated the regulation here at issue de
fining the term “equalizing expenditures” in the manner now
before us. See Part I–B, supra. As far as we can tell, no
Member of Congress has ever criticized the method the 1976
regulation sets forth nor suggested at any time that it be
revised or reconsidered.
The present statutory language originated in draft legisla
tion that the Secretary himself sent to Congress in 1994.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
91 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
With one minor change (irrelevant to the present calculation
controversy), Congress adopted that language without com
ment or clarification. No one at the time—no Member of
Congress, no Department of Education official, no school dis
trict or State—expressed the view that this statutory lan
guage (which, after all, was supplied by the Secretary) was
intended to require, or did require, the Secretary to change
the Department’s system of calculation, a system that the
Department and school districts across the Nation had fol
lowed for nearly 20 years, without (as far as we are told) any
adverse effect.
Finally, viewed in terms of the purpose of the statute’s
disregard instruction, the Secretary’s calculation method is
reasonable, while the reasonableness of a method based upon
the number of districts alone (Zuni’s proposed method) is
more doubtful. When the Secretary (then Commissioner) of
Education considered the matter in 1976, he explained why
that is so.
Initially the Secretary pointed out that the “exclusion of
the upper and bottom 5 percentile school districts is based
upon the accepted principle of statistical evaluation that such
percentiles usually represent unique or noncharacteristic
situations.” 41 Fed. Reg. 26320 (1976) (emphasis added).
That purpose, a purpose to exclude statistical outliers, is evi
dent in the language of the present statute. The provision
uses the technical term “percentile”; it refers to cutoff num
bers (“95th” and “5th”) often associated with scientific calcu
lations; and it directly precedes another statutory provision
that tells the Secretary to account for those districts, from
among the middle 5th to 95th percentile districts, that re
main “noncharacteristic” in respect to geography or the
presence of special students (such as disabled students).
See 20 U. S. C. §§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(i)–(ii) (2000 ed.).
The Secretary added that under the regulation’s calcula
tion system the “percentiles” would be “determined on the
basis of numbers of pupils and not on the basis of numbers

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
92 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
of districts.” 41 Fed. Reg. 26324. He said that to base “an
exclusion on numbers of districts” alone “would act to apply
the disparity standard in an unfair and inconsistent man
ner among States.” Ibid. He then elaborated upon his
concerns:
“The purpose of the exclusion is to eliminate those
anomalous characteristics of a distribution of expendi
tures. In States with a small number of large districts,
an exclusion based on percentage of school districts
might exclude from the measure of disparity a substan
tial percentage of the pupil population in those States.
Conversely, in States with large numbers of small dis
tricts, such an approach might exclude only an insig
nificant fraction of the pupil population and would not
exclude anomalous characteristics.” Ibid.
To understand the Secretary’s first problem, consider an
exaggerated example, say, a State with 80 school districts of
unequal size. Suppose 8 of the districts include urban areas
and together account for 70 percent of the State’s students,
while the remaining 72 districts include primarily rural areas
and together account for 30 percent of the State’s students.
If the State’s greatest funding disparities are among the 8
urban districts, Zuni’s calculation method (which looks only
at the number of districts and ignores their size) would re
quire the Secretary to disregard the system’s 8 largest dis
tricts (i. e., 10 percent of the number 80) even though those
8 districts (because they together contain 70 percent of
the State’s pupils) are typical of, indeed characterize, the
State’s public school system. It would require the Secre
tary instead to measure the system’s expenditure equality
by looking only to noncharacteristic districts that are not
representative of the system as a whole, indeed districts
accounting for only 30 percent of the State’s pupils. Thus,
according to Zuni’s method, the Secretary would have to cer
tify a state aid program as one that “equalizes expenditures”

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
93 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
even if there were gross disparities in per-pupil expendi
tures among urban districts accounting for 70 percent of
the State’s students. By way of contrast, the Secretary’s
method, by taking into account a district’s size as well as its
expenditures, would avoid a calculation that would produce
results so contrary to the statute’s objective.
To understand the Secretary’s second problem consider
this very case. New Mexico’s 89 school districts vary sig
nificantly in respect to the number of pupils each contains.
Zuni’s calculation system nonetheless forbids the Secretary
to discount more than 10 districts—10 percent of the total
number of districts (rounded up). But these districts taken
together account for only 1.8 percent of the State’s pupils.
To eliminate only those districts, instead of eliminating dis
tricts that together account for 10 percent of the State’s
pupils, risks resting the “disregard” calculation upon a few
particularly extreme noncharacteristic districts, yet again
contrary to the statute’s intent.
Thus, the history and purpose of the disregard instruction
indicate that the Secretary’s calculation formula is a reason
able method that carries out Congress’ likely intent in enact
ing the statutory provision before us.
B
But what of the provision’s literal language? The matter
is important, for normally neither the legislative history nor
the reasonableness of the Secretary’s method would be de
terminative if the plain language of the statute unambigu
ously indicated that Congress sought to foreclose the Secre
tary’s interpretation. And Zuni argues that the Secretary’s
formula could not possibly effectuate Congress’ intent since
the statute’s language literally forbids the Secretary to use
such a method. Under this Court’s precedents, if the intent
of Congress is clear and unambiguously expressed by the
statutory language at issue, that would be the end of our
analysis. See Chevron, 467 U. S., at 842–843. A customs

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
94 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
statute that imposes a tariff on “clothing” does not impose a
tariff on automobiles, no matter how strong the policy argu
ments for treating the two kinds of goods alike. But we
disagree with Zuni’s conclusion, for we believe that the Sec
retary’s method falls within the scope of the statute’s plain
language.
That language says that, when the Secretary compares (for
a specified fiscal year) “the amount of per-pupil expenditures
made by” (1) the highest-per-pupil-expenditure district and
(2) the lowest-per-pupil-expenditure district, “the Secretary
shall . . . disregard” local school districts “with per-pupil ex
penditures . . . above the 95th percentile or below the 5th
percentile of such expenditures in the State.” 20 U. S. C.
§§ 7709(b)(2)(A), (B)(i). The word “such” refers to “per-pupil
expenditures” (or more precisely to “per-pupil expenditures”
in the test year specified by the statute). The question then
is whether the phrase “above the 95th percentile . . . of . . .
[per pupil] expenditures” permits the Secretary to calculate
percentiles by (1) ranking local districts, (2) noting the stu
dent population of each district, and (3) determining the cut
off point on the basis of districts containing 95 percent (or 5
percent) of the State’s students.
Our answer is that this phrase, taken with absolute literal
ness, limits the Secretary to calculation methods that involve
“per-pupil expenditures.” But it does not tell the Secretary
which of several different possible methods the Department
must use. Nor does it rule out the present formula, which
distributes districts in accordance with per-pupil expendi
tures, while essentially weighting each district to reflect the
number of pupils it contains.
Because the statute uses technical language (e. g., “percen
tile”) and seeks a technical purpose (eliminating unchar
acteristic, or outlier, districts), we have examined diction
ary definitions of the term “percentile.” See 41 Fed. Reg.
26320 (Congress intended measurements based upon an “ac
cepted principle of statistical evaluation” (emphasis added)).

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
95 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
Those definitions make clear that “percentile” refers to a di
vision of a distribution of some population into 100 parts.
Thus, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1675
(1961) (Webster’s Third) defines “percentile” as “the value of
the statistical variable that marks the boundary between any
two consecutive intervals in a distribution of 100 intervals
each containing one percent of the total population.” A
standard economics dictionary gives a similar definition for
“percentiles”:
“The values separating hundredth parts of a distribu
tion, arranged in order of size. The 99th percentile of
the income distribution, for example, is the income level
such that only one per cent of the population have larger
incomes.” J. Black, A Dictionary of Economics 348–349
(2d ed. 2002).
A dictionary of mathematics states: “The n-th percentile is
the value Xn/100 such that n per cent of the population is
less than or equal to Xn/100 .” It adds that “[t]he terms can
be modified, though not always very satisfactorily, to be ap
plicable to a discrete random variable or to a large sample
ranked in ascending order.” C. Clapham & J. Nicholson, The
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics 378–379 (3d ed.
2005) (emphasis deleted). The American Heritage Science
Dictionary 468 (2005) explains that a percentile is “[a]ny of
the 100 equal parts into which the range of the values of a
set of data can be divided in order to show the distribution
of those values.” And Merriam-Webster’s Medical Desk
Dictionary 612 (2002) describes percentile as “a value on a
scale of one hundred that indicates the percent of a distribu
tion that is equal to or below it.”
These definitions, mainstream and technical, all indicate
that, in order to identify the relevant percentile cutoffs, the
Secretary must construct a distribution of values. That dis
tribution will consist of a “population” ranked according to a
characteristic. That characteristic takes on a “value” for

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
96 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
each member of the relevant population. The statute’s in
struction to identify the 95th and 5th “percentile of such ex
penditures” makes clear that the relevant characteristic for
ranking purposes is per-pupil expenditure during a particu
lar year. But the statute does not specify precisely what
population is to be “distributed” (i. e., ranked according to
the population’s corresponding values for the relevant char
acteristic). Nor does it set forth various details as to how
precisely the distribution is to be constructed (as long as it
is ranked according to the specified characteristic).
But why is Congress’ silence in respect to these matters
significant? Are there several different populations, rele
vant here, that one might rank according to “per-pupil ex
penditures” (and thereby determine in several different
ways a cutoff point such that “n percent of [that] population”
falls, say, below the percentile cutoff)? We are not experts
in statistics, but a statistician is not needed to see what the
dictionary does not say. No dictionary definition we have
found suggests that there is any single logical, mathematical,
or statistical link between, on the one hand, the characteriz
ing data (used for ranking purposes) and, on the other hand,
the nature of the relevant population or how that population
might be weighted for purposes of determining a percentile
cutoff.
Here, the Secretary has distributed districts, ranked them
according to per-pupil expenditure, but compared only those
that account for 90 percent of the State’s pupils. Thus, the
Secretary has used—as her predecessors had done for a
quarter century before her—the State’s students as the rele
vant population for calculating the specified percentiles.
Another Secretary might have distributed districts, ranked
them by per-pupil expenditure, and made no reference to the
number of pupils (a method that satisfies the statute’s lan
guage but threatens the problems the Secretary long ago
identified, see 41 Fed. Reg. 26324; supra, at 91–93). A third
Secretary might have distributed districts, ranked them by

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
97 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
per-pupil expenditure, but compared only those that account
for 90 percent of total pupil expenditures in the State. A
fourth Secretary might have distributed districts, ranked
them by per-pupil expenditure, but calculated the 95th and
5th percentile cutoffs using the per-pupil expenditures of all
the individual schools in the State. See 41 Fed. Reg. 26324
(considering this system of calculation). A fifth Secretary
might have distributed districts, ranked them by per-pupil
expenditure, but accounted in his disparity calculation for
the sometimes significant differences in per-pupil spending
at different grade levels. See 34 CFR § 222.162(b)(1) (2006)
(authorizing such a system); id., pt. 222, subpt. K, App. See
also Appendix B, infra.
Each of these methods amounts to a different way of deter
mining which districts fall between the 5th and 95th “percen
tile of per-pupil expenditures.” For purposes of that calcu
lation, they each adopt different populations—students,
districts, schools, and grade levels. Yet, linguistically
speaking, one may attribute the characteristic of per-pupil
expenditure to each member of any such population (though
the values of that characteristic may be more or less readily
available depending on the chosen population, see 41 Fed.
Reg. 26324). Hence, the statute’s literal language covers
any or all of these methods. That language alone does not
tell us (or the Secretary of Education), however, which
method to use.
Justice Scalia’s claim that this interpretation “defies any
semblance of normal English” depends upon its own defini
tion of the word “per.” That word, according to the dissent,
“connotes . . . a single average figure assigned to a unit the
composite members of which are individual pupils.” Post, at
113 (emphasis deleted). In fact, the word “per” simply means
“[f]or each” or “for every.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1171 (8th
ed. 1999); see Webster’s Third 1674. Thus, nothing in the
English language prohibits the Secretary from considering
expenditures for each individual pupil in a district when

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
98 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Opinion of the Court
instructed to look at a district’s “per-pupil expenditures.”
The remainder of the dissent’s argument, colorful language
to the side, rests upon a reading of the statutory language
that ignores its basic purpose and history.
We find additional evidence for our understanding of the
language in the fact that Congress, in other statutes, has
clarified the matter here at issue thereby avoiding compara
ble ambiguity. For example, in a different education-related
statute, Congress refers to “the school at the 20th percentile
in the State, based on enrollment, among all schools ranked
by the percentage of students at the proficient level.” 20
U. S. C. § 6311(b)(2)(E)(ii) (2000 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis
added). In another statute fixing charges for physicians
services, Congress specified that the maximum charge “shall
be the 50th percentile of the customary charges for the serv
ice (weighted by the frequency of the service) performed by
nonparticipating physicians in the locality during the [prior]
12-month period.” 42 U. S. C. § 1395u( j)(1)(C)(v) (2000 ed.)
(emphasis added). In these statutes Congress indicated
with greater specificity how a percentile should be deter
mined by stating precisely not only which data values are of
interest, but also (in the first) the population that is to be
distributed and (in the second) the weightings needed to
make the calculation meaningful and to avoid counterproduc
tive results. In the statute at issue here, however, Congress
used more general language (drafted by the Secretary him
self), which leaves the Secretary with the authority to re
solve such subsidiary matters at the administrative level.
We also find support for our view of the language in the
more general circumstance that statutory “[a]mbiguity is a
creature not [just] of definitional possibilities but [also] of
statutory context.” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118
(1994). See also FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 132–133 (2000) (“[m]eaning—or ambigu
ity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
99 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Opinion of the Court
when placed in context” (emphasis added)). That may be so
even if statutory language is highly technical. After all, the
scope of what seems a precise technical chess instruction,
such as “you must place the queen next to the king,” varies
with context, depending, for example, upon whether the in
structor is telling a beginner how to set up the board or
telling an advanced player how to checkmate an opponent.
The dictionary acknowledges that, when interpreting techni
cal statistical language, the purpose of the exercise matters,
for it says that “quantile,” “percentile,” “quartile,” and “dec
ile” are “terms [that] can be modified, though not always
very satisfactorily, to be applicable to . . . a large sample
ranked in ascending order.” Oxford Dictionary of Mathe
matics, at 378–379.
Thus, an instruction to “identify schools with average
scholastic aptitude test scores below the 5th percentile of
such scores” may vary as to the population to be distributed,
depending upon whether the context is one of providing addi
tional counseling and support to students at low-performing
schools (in which case the relevant population would likely
consist of students), or one of identifying unsuccessful learn
ing protocols at low-performing schools (in which case the
appropriate population may well be the schools themselves).
Context here tells us that the instruction to identify school
districts with “per-pupil expenditures” above the 95th per
centile “of such expenditures” is similarly ambiguous, be
cause both students and school districts are of concern to the
statute. Accordingly, the disregard instruction can include
within its scope the distribution of a ranked population that
consists of pupils (or of school districts weighted by pupils)
and not just a ranked distribution of unweighted school dis
tricts alone.
Finally, we draw reassurance from the fact that no group
of statisticians, nor any individual statistician, has told us
directly in briefs, or indirectly through citation, that the lan

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
100 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Appendix A to opinion of the Court
guage before us cannot be read as we have read it. This
circumstance is significant, for the statutory language is
technical, and we are not statisticians. And the views of
experts (or their absence) might help us understand (though
not control our determination of) what Congress had in
mind.
The upshot is that the language of the statute is broad
enough to permit the Secretary’s reading. That fact re
quires us to look beyond the language to determine whether
the Secretary’s interpretation is a reasonable, hence permis
sible, implementation of the statute. See Chevron, 467
U. S., at 842–843. For the reasons set forth in Part II–A,
supra, we conclude that the Secretary’s reading is a reason
able reading. We consequently find the Secretary’s method
of calculation lawful.
The judgment of the Tenth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIXES TO OPINION OF THE COURT
A
We set out the relevant statutory provisions and accompa
nying regulations in full. The reader will note that in the
text of our opinion, for purposes of exposition, we use the
term “local school districts” where the statute refers to
“local educational agencies.” We also disregard the stat
ute’s frequent references to local “revenues” because those
references do not raise any additional considerations ger
mane to this case.
Impact Aid Program, 20 U. S. C. § 7709 (2000 ed. and Supp.
IV) (state consideration of payments in providing state aid):
“(a) General prohibition
“Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section,
a State may not—
“(1) consider payments under this subchapter in
determining for any fiscal year—

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
101 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Appendix A to opinion of the Court
“(A) the eligibility of a local educational agency
for State aid for free public education; or
“(B) the amount of such aid; or
“(2) make such aid available to local educational
agencies in a manner that results in less State aid to
any local educational agency that is eligible for such
payment than such agency would receive if such
agency were not so eligible.
“(b) State equalization plans
“(1) In general
“A State may reduce State aid to a local educational
agency that receives a payment under section 7702 or
7703(b) of this title (except the amount calculated in
excess of 1.0 under section 7703(a)(2)(B) of this title
and, with respect to a local educational agency that
receives a payment under section 7703(b)(2) of this
title, the amount in excess of the amount that the
agency would receive if the agency were deemed to be
an agency eligible to receive a payment under section
7703(b)(1) of this title and not section 7703(b)(2) of this
title) for any fiscal year if the Secretary determines,
and certifies under subsection (c)(3)(A) of this section,
that the State has in effect a program of State aid
that equalizes expenditures for free public education
among local educational agencies in the State.
“(2) Computation
“(A) In general
“For purposes of paragraph (1), a program of
State aid equalizes expenditures among local educa
tional agencies if, in the second fiscal year preced
ing the fiscal year for which the determination is
made, the amount of per-pupil expenditures made
by, or per-pupil revenues available to, the local edu
cational agency in the State with the highest such
per-pupil expenditures or revenues did not exceed

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
102 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Appendix B to opinion of the Court
the amount of such per-pupil expenditures made by,
or per-pupil revenues available to, the local edu
cational agency in the State with the lowest such
expenditures or revenues by more than 25 percent.
“(B) Other factors
“In making a determination under this subsec
tion, the Secretary shall—
“(i) disregard local educational agencies with
per-pupil expenditures or revenues above the
95th percentile or below the 5th percentile of
such expenditures or revenues in the State; and
“(ii) take into account the extent to which a
program of State aid reflects the additional cost
of providing free public education in particular
types of local educational agencies, such as those
that are geographically isolated, or to partic
ular types of students, such as children with
disabilities.”
B
34 CFR § 222.162 (2006) (What disparity standard must a
State meet in order to be certified, and how are disparities
in current expenditures or revenues per pupil measured?):
“(a) Percentage disparity limitation. The Secretary
considers that a State aid program equalizes expendi
tures if the disparity in the amount of current expendi
tures or revenues per pupil for free public education
among LEAs in the State is no more than 25 percent.
In determining the disparity percentage, the Secretary
disregards LEAs with per pupil expenditures or reve
nues above the 95th or below the 5th percentile of those
expenditures or revenues in the State. The method for
calculating the percentage of disparity in a State is in
the appendix to this subpart.
“(b)(1) Weighted average dispar i ty for di fferent
grade level groups. If a State requests it, the Secretary

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
103 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Appendix B to opinion of the Court
will make separate disparity computations for different
groups of LEAs in the State that have similar grade
levels of instruction.
“(2) In those cases, the weighted average disparity
for all groups, based on the proportionate number of pu
pils in each group, may not be more than the percentage
provided in paragraph (a) of this section. The method
for calculating the weighted average disparity percent
age is set out in the appendix to this subpart.
“(c) Per pupil figure computations. In calculating
the current expenditures or revenue disparities under
this section, computations of per pupil figures are made
on one of the following bases:
“(1) The per pupil amount of current expenditures or
revenue for an LEA is computed on the basis of the total
number of pupils receiving free public education in the
schools of the agency. The total number of pupils is de
termined in accordance with whatever standard meas
urement of pupil count is used in the State.”
34 CFR pt. 222, subpt. K, App. (2006) (Methods of Calcula
tions for Treatment of Impact Aid Payments Under State
Equalization Programs):
“The following paragraphs describe the methods for
making certain calculations in conjunction with determi
nations made under the regulations in this subpart.
Except as otherwise provided in the regulations, these
methods are the only methods that may be used in mak
ing these calculations.
“1. Determinations of disparity standard compli
ance under § 222.162(b)(1).
“(a) The determinations of disparity in current ex
penditures or revenue per pupil are made by—
“(i) Ranking all LEAs having similar grade levels
within the State on the basis of current expenditures or

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
104 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Stevens, J., concurring
revenue per pupil for the second preceding fiscal year
before the year of determination;
“(ii) Identifying those LEAs in each ranking that fall
at the 95th and 5th percentiles of the total number of
pupils in attendance in the schools of those LEAs; and
“(iii) Subtracting the lower current expenditure or
revenue per pupil figure from the higher for those agen
cies identified in paragraph (ii) and dividing the differ
ence by the lower figure.
. . . . .
“(b) In cases under § 222.162(b), where separate com
putations are made for different groups of LEAs, the
disparity percentage for each group is obtained in the
manner described in paragraph (a) above. Then the
weighted average disparity percentage for the State as
a whole is determined by—
“(i) Multiplying the disparity percentage for each
group by the total number of pupils receiving free public
education in the schools in that group;
“(ii) Summing the figures obtained in paragraph
(b)(i); and
“(iii) Dividing the sum obtained in paragraph (b)(ii)
by the total number of pupils for all the groups.
example
Group 1 (grades 1–6), 80,000 pupils�18% = 14,400
Group 2 (grades 7–12), 100,000 pupils�22% = 22,000
Group 3 (grades 1–12), 20,000 pupils�35% = 7,000
Total 200,000 pupils .................................................... 43,400
43,400/200,000=21.70% Disparity ”
Justice Stevens, concurring.
In his oft-cited opinion for the Court in Griffin v. Oceanic
Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 571 (1982), then-Justice
Rehnquist wisely acknowledged that “in rare cases the lit

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
105 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Stevens, J., concurring
eral application of a statute will produce a result demonstra
bly at odds with the intentions of its drafters, and those in
tentions must be controlling.” And in United States v. Ron
Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 242 (1989), the Court
began its analysis of the question of statutory construction
by restating the proposition that “[i]n such cases, the inten
tion of the drafters, rather than the strict language, con
trols.” Justice Scalia provided the decisive fifth vote for
the majority in that case.
Today he correctly observes that a judicial decision that
departs from statutory text may represent “policy-driven in
terpretation.” Post, at 109 (dissenting opinion). As long as
that driving policy is faithful to the intent of Congress (or,
as in this case, aims only to give effect to such intent)—
which it must be if it is to override a strict interpretation of
the text—the decision is also a correct performance of the
judicial function. Justice Scalia’s argument today rests
on the incorrect premise that every policy-driven interpreta
tion implements a judge’s personal view of sound policy,
rather than a faithful attempt to carry out the will of the
legislature. Quite the contrary is true of the work of the
judges with whom I have worked for many years. If we
presume that our judges are intellectually honest—as I do—
there is no reason to fear “policy-driven interpretation[s]” of
Acts of Congress.
In Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984), we acknowledged
that when “the intent of Congress is clear [from the statu
tory text], that is the end of the matter.” But we also made
quite clear that “administrative constructions which are con
trary to clear congressional intent” must be rejected. Id.,
at 843, n. 9. In that unanimous opinion, we explained:
“If a court, employing traditional tools of statutory con
struction, ascertains that Congress had an intention on
the precise question at issue, that intention is the law
and must be given effect.” Ibid.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
106 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Stevens, J., concurring
Analysis of legislative history is, of course, a traditional tool
of statutory construction.1 There is no reason why we must
confine ourselves to, or begin our analysis with, the statutory
text if other tools of statutory construction provide better
evidence of congressional intent with respect to the precise
point at issue.
As the Court’s opinion demonstrates, this is a quintessen
tial example of a case in which the statutory text was obvi
ously enacted to adopt the rule that the Secretary adminis
tered both before and after the enactment of the rather
confusing language found in 20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i).
See ante, at 90–91. That text is sufficiently ambiguous to
justify the Court’s exegesis, but my own vote is the product
of a more direct route to the Court’s patently correct conclu
sion. This happens to be a case in which the legislative his
tory is pellucidly clear and the statutory text is difficult to
fathom.2 Moreover, it is a case in which I cannot imagine
anyone accusing any Member of the Court of voting one way
or the other because of that Justice’s own policy preferences.
Given the clarity of the evidence of Congress’ “intention on
the precise question at issue,” I would affirm the judgment of
the Court of Appeals even if I thought that petitioners’ lit
1 See, e. g., Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U. S. 597, 610,
n. 4 (1991); Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193, 230–253 (1979) (Rehnquist,
J., dissenting).
2 Contrary to Justice Scalia, I find it far more likely that the Congress
that voted “without comment or clarification,” ante, at 91 (majority opin
ion), to adopt the 1994 statutory language relied on the endorsement of its
sponsors, who introduced the legislation “on behalf of the administration,”
see 139 Cong. Rec. 23416 (1993) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy) and id., at
23514 (remarks of Sen. Jeffords), and the fact that such language was
drafted and proposed by the U. S. Department of Education, rather than
a parsing of its obscure statutory text.
Moreover, I assume that, regardless of the statutory language’s sup
posed clarity, any competent counsel challenging the validity of a presump
tively valid federal regulation would examine the legislative history of its
authorizing statute before filing suit.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
107 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Kennedy, J., concurring
eral reading of the statutory text was correct.3 The only
“policy” by which I have been driven is that which this Court
has endorsed on repeated occasions regarding the impor
tance of remaining faithful to Congress’ intent.
Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice Alito joins,
concurring.
The district courts and courts of appeals, as well as this
Court, should follow the framework set forth in Chevron
U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467
U. S. 837 (1984), even when departure from that framework
might serve purposes of exposition. When considering an
administrative agency’s interpretation of a statute, a court
first determines “whether Congress has directly spoken to
the precise question at issue.” Id., at 842. If so, “that is
the end of the matter.” Ibid. Only if “Congress has not
directly addressed the precise question at issue” should a
court consider “whether the agency’s answer is based on a
permissible construction of the statute.” Id., at 843.
In this case, the Court is correct to find that the plain
language of the statute is ambiguous. It is proper, there
fore, to invoke Chevron’s rule of deference. The opinion of
the Court, however, inverts Chevron’s logical progression.
Were the inversion to become systemic, it would create the
impression that agency policy concerns, rather than the tra
ditional tools of statutory construction, are shaping the judi
cial interpretation of statutes. It is our obligation to set a
good example; and so, in my view, it would have been prefer
able, and more faithful to Chevron, to arrange the opinion
differently. Still, we must give deference to the author of
an opinion in matters of exposition; and because the point
does not affect the outcome, I join the Court’s opinion.
3 See Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 459 (1892)
(“It is a familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute
and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within
the intention of its makers”).

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
108 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and Jus
tice Thomas join, and with whom Justice Souter joins as
to Part I, dissenting.
In Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S.
457 (1892), this Court conceded that a church’s act of con
tracting with a prospective rector fell within the plain mean
ing of a federal labor statute, but nevertheless did not apply
the statute to the church: “It is a familiar rule,” the Court
pronounced, “that a thing may be within the letter of the
statute and yet not within the statute, because not within
its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers.” Id., at
459. That is a judge-empowering proposition if there ever
was one, and in the century since, the Court has wisely re
treated from it, in words if not always in actions. But today
Church of the Holy Trinity arises, Phoenix-like, from the
ashes. The Court’s contrary assertions aside, today’s deci
sion is nothing other than the elevation of judge-supposed
legislative intent over clear statutory text. The plain lan
guage of the federal Impact Aid statute clearly and unambig
uously forecloses the Secretary of Education’s preferred
methodology for determining whether a State’s school
funding system is equalized. Her selection of that method
ology is therefore entitled to zero deference under Chevron
U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467
U. S. 837 (1984).
I
The very structure of the Court’s opinion provides an obvi
ous clue as to what is afoot. The opinion purports to place
a premium on the plain text of the Impact Aid statute, ante,
at 93–94, but it first takes us instead on a roundabout tour of
“[c]onsiderations other than language,” ante, at 90 (emphasis
added)—page after page of unenacted congressional intent
and judicially perceived statutory purpose, Part II–A, ante.
Only after we are shown “why Zuni concentrates its argu
ment upon language alone,” ante, at 90 (impliedly a shameful
practice, or at least indication of a feeble case), are we in

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
109 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
formed how the statute’s plain text does not unambiguously
preclude the interpretation the Court thinks best. Part
II–B, ante (beginning “But what of the provision’s literal lan
guage? The matter is important . . . ”). This is a most
suspicious order of proceeding, since our case law is full of
statements such as “We begin, as always, with the language
of the statute,” Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 172 (2001),
and replete with the affirmation that, when “[g]iven [a]
straightforward statutory command, there is no reason to
resort to legislative history,” United States v. Gonzales, 520
U. S. 1, 6 (1997). Nor is this cart-before-the-horse approach
justified by the Court’s excuse that the statute before us is,
after all, a technical one, ante, at 90. This Court, charged
with interpreting, among other things, the Internal Revenue
Code, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of
1974, and the Clean Air Act, confronts technical language all
the time, but we never see fit to pronounce upon what we
think Congress meant a statute to say, and what we think
sound policy would counsel it to say, before considering what
it does say. As almost a majority of today’s majority wor
ries, “[w]ere the inversion [of inquiry] to become systemic, it
would create the impression that agency policy concerns,
rather than the traditional tools of statutory construction,
are shaping the judicial interpretation of statutes.” Ante,
at 107 (Kennedy, J., joined by Alito, J., concurring). True
enough—except I see no reason to wait for the distortion to
become systemic before concluding that that is precisely
what is happening in the present case. For some, policy
driven interpretation is apparently just fine. See ante, at
105 (Stevens, J., concurring). But for everyone else, let us
return to Statutory Interpretation 101.
We must begin, as we always do, with the text. See, e. g.,
Gonzales, supra, at 4. Under the federal Impact Aid pro
gram, 20 U. S. C. § 7701 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. IV), States
distributing state aid to local school districts (referred to in

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
110 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
the statute as “local educational agencies,” or “LEAs” 1) may
not take into account the amount of federal Impact Aid that
its LEAs receive. See § 7709(a). But the statute makes an
exception if the Secretary of Education certifies that a State
“has in effect a program of State aid that equalizes expendi
tures for free public education among local educational agen
cies in the State.” § 7709(b)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. IV). Con
gress has specified a formula for the Secretary to use when
making this equalization determination:
“[A] program of State aid equalizes expenditures among
local educational agencies if . . . the amount of per-pupil
expenditures made by, or per-pupil revenues available
to, the local educational agency in the State with the
highest such per-pupil expenditures or revenues did
not exceed the amount of such per-pupil expenditures
made by, or per-pupil revenues available to, the local
educational agency in the State with the lowest such
expenditures or revenues by more than 25 percent.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(A).
The Secretary is further instructed, however, that when
making this determination, she shall “disregard local educa
tional agencies with per-pupil expenditures or revenues
above the 95th percentile or below the 5th percentile of such
expenditures or revenues in the State.” § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i).
It is this latter subsection which concerns us here.
The casual observer will notice that the Secretary’s imple
menting regulations do not look much like the statute. The
regulations first require the Secretary to rank all of the
LEAs in a State (New Mexico has 89) according to their per
pupil expenditures or revenues. 34 CFR pt. 222, subpt. K,
App., ¶ (1)(a)(i) (2006). So far so good. But critically here,
1 The Court’s opinion has replaced the phrase “ ‘local educational agen
cies’ ” with “ ‘local school districts.’ ” See ante, at 100. While I have no
objection to that terminology, I will instead use “local educational agen
cies” and “LEAs.”

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
111 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
the Secretary must then “[i]dentif[y] those LEAs . . . that
fall at the 95th and 5th percentiles of the total number of
pupils in attendance in the schools of those LEAs.” Id.,
¶ (1)(a)(ii) (emphasis added). Finally, the Secretary com
pares the per-pupil figures of those two LEAs for the purpose
of assessing whether a State exceeds the 25% disparity
measure. Id., ¶ (1)(a)(iii). The majority concludes that this
method of calculation, with its focus on student population,
is a permissible interpretation of the statute.
It most assuredly is not. To understand why, one first
must look beyond the smokescreen that the Court lays down
with its repeated apologies for inexperience in statistics, and
its endless recitation of technical mathematical definitions of
the word “percentile.” See, e. g., ante, at 95 (“ ‘The n-th per
centile is the value Xn/100 such that n per cent of the popula
tion is less than or equal to Xn/100 ’ ” (quoting C. Clapham & J.
Nicholson, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics
378 (3d ed. 2005))). This case is not a scary math problem;
it is a straightforward matter of statutory interpretation.
And we do not need the Court’s hypothetical cadre of
number-crunching amici, ante, at 99–100, to guide our way.
There is no dispute that for purposes relevant here “ ‘per
centile’ refers to a division of a distribution of some popula
tion into 100 parts.’ ” Ante, at 95. And there is further no
dispute that the statute concerns the percentile of “per-pupil
expenditures or revenues,” for that is what the word “such”
refers to. See 20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) (Secretary shall
“disregard local educational agencies with per-pupil expend
itures or revenues above the 95th percentile or below the 5th
percentile of such expenditures or revenues in the State”
(emphasis added)). The question is: Whose per-pupil ex
penditures or revenues? Or, in the Court’s terminology,
what “population” is assigned the “characteristic” “per-pupil
expenditure” or revenue? Ante, at 95–96. At first blush,
second blush, or twenty-second blush, the answer is abun
dantly clear: local educational agencies. The statute re

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
112 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
quires the Secretary to “disregard local educational agencies
with” certain per-pupil figures above or below specified per
centiles of those per-pupil figures. § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i). The
attribute “per-pupil expenditur[e] or revenu[e]” is assigned
to LEAs—there is no mention of student population whatso
ever. And thus under the statute, “per-pupil expenditures
or revenues” are to be arrayed using a population consisting
of LEAs, so that percentiles are determined from a list of
(in New Mexico) 89 per-pupil expenditures or revenues rep
resenting the 89 LEAs in the State. It is just that simple.
The Court makes little effort to defend the regulations as
they are written. Instead, relying on a made-for-litigation
theory that bears almost no relationship to the regulations
themselves, the Court believes it has found a way to shoe
horn those regulations into the statute. The Impact Aid
statute is ambiguous, the Court says, because it “does not
specify precisely what population is to be ‘distributed’ (i. e.,
ranked according to the population’s corresponding values
for the relevant characteristic).” Ante, at 96. Thus the
Court finds that it is permissible for the Secretary to attrib
ute the characteristic “per-pupil expenditure or revenue” to
pupils, with the result that the Secretary may “us[e] . . . the
State’s students as the relevant population for calculating
the specified percentiles.” Ibid. Under that interpreta
tion, as the State manages to explain with a straight face,
“[i]n New Mexico, during the time at issue, there were ap
proximately 317,777 pupils in the [S]tate and thus there were
317,777 per-pupil revenues in the [S]tate.” Brief for Re
spondent New Mexico Public Education Department 37; see
also id., at 36 (“Each and every student in an LEA and in a
[S]tate may be treated as having his or her own ‘per-pupil’
expenditure or revenue amount”). The Court consequently
concludes that “linguistically speaking, one may attribute
the characteristic of per-pupil expenditure to each [student].”
Ante, at 97.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
113 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
The sheer applesauce of this statutory interpretation
should be obvious. It is of course true that every student
in New Mexico causes an expenditure or produces a revenue
that his LEA either enjoys (in the case of revenues) or is
responsible for (in the case of expenditures). But it simply
defies any semblance of normal English usage to say that
every pupil has a “per-pupil expenditure or revenue.” The
word “per” connotes that the expenditure or revenue is a
single average figure assigned to a unit the composite mem
bers of which are individual pupils. And the only such unit
mentioned in the statute is the local educational agency.2
See 20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i). It is simply irrelevant that
“[n]o dictionary definition . . . suggests that there is any sin
gle logical, mathematical, or statistical link between [per
pupil expenditures or revenues] and . . . the nature of the
relevant population.” Ante, at 96. Of course there is not.
It is the text at issue which must identify the relevant popu
lation, and it does so here quite unambiguously: “local educa
tional agencies with per-pupil expenditures or revenues.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) (emphasis added). That same phrase
shows the utter irrelevance of the Court’s excursus upon the
meaning of the word “per.” See ante, at 97. It does indeed
mean “ ‘for each, or ‘for every’ ”—and when it is contained in
a clause that reads “local educational agencies with per-pupil
expenditures or revenues” it refers to (and can only refer
to) the average expenditure or revenue “for each” or “for
every” student out of the total expenditures or revenues of
the LEA.
2 The Court maintains that the phrase “per-pupil expenditures” or reve
nues may also be attributed to schools or grade levels. Ante, at 97.
Standing alone and abstracted from the rest of the statute, indeed it may.
But not when it appears in the phrase “local educational agencies with
per-pupil expenditures or revenues.” (Emphasis added.) In any case,
the fact that “per-pupil expenditures or revenues” could be applied to
composite entities other than LEAs does not establish that speaking of
the “per-pupil expenditure or revenue” of an individual student makes any
sense (it does not).

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
114 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
The violence done to this statute would be severe enough
if the Secretary used the actual expenditure or revenue for
each individual pupil. But in fact the Secretary determines
the per-pupil expenditure or revenue for each individual
student by (guess what) computing the per-pupil expendi
ture or revenue of each LEA! As the New Mexico brief
explains:
“[A] per-pupil expenditure or revenue is an average
number. It is not the amount actually spent on any
given pupil, an amount which would be impossible to
calculate in any meaningful way. It is roughly the total
amount expended by an LEA divided by the number of
pupils in that LEA.” Brief for Respondent New Mex
ico Public Education Department 36.
The Secretary thus assigns an artificial number to each stu
dent that corresponds exactly to his LEA’s per-pupil expend
iture or revenue. In other words, at the end of the day the
Secretary herself acknowledges that “per-pupil expenditures
or revenues” pertains to LEAs, and not students. And she
is interpreting “per-pupil expenditure or revenue” not as the
Court suggests (an amount attributable to each student), but
rather as I suggest (an average amount for the pupils in a
particular LEA). But she then proceeds to take a step not
at all permitted by the statutory formula—in effect applying
“per-pupil expenditure or revenue” a second time (this time
according to the Court’s fanciful interpretation of “per
pupil”) in order to reach the result she desires. Of course,
if the Secretary did apply the “per-pupil expenditure or reve
nue” only once, arraying students by their actual expendi
tures or revenues, her entire system would collapse. Stu
dents from the same LEA, rather than appearing on the list
with the same per-pupil figure, would be located at various
points on the spectrum. And so long as an LEA had at least
one student above the 95th or below the 5th percentile of
pupil “per-pupil expenditures or revenues,” that LEA would

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
115 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
have to be excluded from the disparity analysis. The result
would be a serious distortion of the disparity determination,
excluding many more LEAs (in fact, perhaps all of them)
from the disparity calculation. This would render the 25%
disparity measure in § 7709(b)(2)(A) all but meaningless.
The Court makes one final attempt to rescue the Sec
retary’s interpretation, appealing to “statutory context.”
“Context here tells us,” it says, “that the instruction to iden
tify school districts with ‘per-pupil expenditures’ above the
95th percentile ‘of such expenditures’ is . . . ambiguous, be
cause both students and school districts are of concern to the
statute.” Ante, at 99. This is a complete non sequitur. Of
course students are a concern to a statute dealing with
school funding. But that does not create any ambiguity
with respect to whether, under this statute, pupils can rea
sonably be said to have their own “per-pupil expenditures
or revenues.” It is simply irrational to say that the clear
dispositions of a statute with regard to the entities that it
regulates (here LEAs) are rendered ambiguous when those
entities contain subunits that are the ultimate beneficiaries
of the regulation (here students). Such a principle of inter
pretation—if it could be called that—would inject ambiguity
into many statutes indeed.
The Court’s reliance on statutory context is all the more
puzzling since the context obviously favors petitioners.
“The focus [of the Impact Aid statute] is upon LEAs, not
upon the number of pupils.” 393 F. 3d 1158, 1172 (CA10
2004) (O’Brien, J., dissenting), opinion vacated, 437 F. 3d
1289, 1290 (2006) (en banc) (per curiam). In fact, the provi
sions at issue here make not the slightest mention of stu
dents. That is both sensible and predictable, since the
Impact Aid program’s equalization formula is designed to
address funding disparities between LEAs, not between
students. See 20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(A) (referring to “a
program of State aid [that] equalizes expenditures among
local educational agencies”); see also § 7709(d)(1). Indeed,

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
116 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
the whole point of the equalization determination is to figure
out whether States may reduce state aid to LEAs. See
§ 7709(a).
In sum, the plain language of the Impact Aid statute com
pels the conclusion that the Secretary’s method of calculation
is ultra vires. Employing the formula that the statute re
quires, New Mexico is not equalized. Ante, at 89.
II
How then, if the text is so clear, are respondents managing
to win this case? The answer can only be the return of that
miraculous redeemer of lost causes, Church of the Holy Trin
ity. In order to contort the statute’s language beyond rec
ognition, the Court must believe Congress’s intent so crys
talline, the spirit of its legislation so glowingly bright, that
the statutory text should simply not be read to say what it
says. See Part II–A, ante. Justice Stevens is quite can
did on the point: He is willing to contradict the text. See
ante, at 106–107 (concurring opinion).3 But Justice Ste
vens’ candor should not make his philosophy seem unassum
ing. He maintains that it is “a correct performance of the
judicial function” to “override a strict interpretation of the
text” so long as policy-driven interpretation “is faithful to
the intent of Congress.” Ante, at 105. But once one de
parts from “strict interpretation of the text” (by which Jus
3 Like Justice Stevens, respondents themselves were aboveboard
when they litigated this case at the administrative level. After hearing
argument from the Department of Education, the Administrative Law
Judge (ALJ) protested: “The problem is I don’t see the ambiguity of the
statute.” App. 29. To this the Department’s counsel responded: “The
only way I can do that is by reference to the statutory purpose.” Ibid.
Later in the hearing, the ALJ similarly asked the State of New Mexico
how its interpretation was consistent with the statute. The State an
swered: “Literally, on the face of the words, perhaps not, probably not.”
Id., at 53. Despite his misgivings, the ALJ ultimately decided that he did
not possess the authority to invalidate the regulations. App. to Pet. for
Cert. 38a, 51a.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
117 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
tice Stevens means the actual meaning of the text) fidelity
to the intent of Congress is a chancy thing. The only thing
we know for certain both Houses of Congress (and the Presi
dent, if he signed the legislation) agreed upon is the text.
Legislative history can never produce a “pellucidly clear”
picture, ante, at 106 (Stevens, J., concurring), of what a law
was “intended” to mean, for the simple reason that it is never
voted upon—or ordinarily even seen or heard—by the “in
tending” lawgiving entity, which consists of both Houses of
Congress and the President (if he did not veto the bill). See
U. S. Const., Art. I, §§ 1, 7. Thus, what judges believe Con
gress “meant” (apart from the text) has a disturbing but en
tirely unsurprising tendency to be whatever judges think
Congress must have meant, i. e., should have meant. In
Church of the Holy Trinity, every Justice on this Court dis
regarded the plain language of a statute that forbade the
hiring of a clergyman from abroad because, after all (they
thought), “this is a Christian nation,” 143 U. S., at 471, so
Congress could not have meant what it said. Is there any
reason to believe that those Justices were lacking that “intel
lectua[l] honest[y]” that Justice Stevens “presume[s]” all
our judges possess, ante, at 105? Intellectual honesty does
not exclude a blinding intellectual bias. And even if it did,
the system of judicial amendatory veto over texts duly
adopted by Congress bears no resemblance to the system of
lawmaking set forth in our Constitution.
Justice Stevens takes comfort in the fact that this is a
case in which he “cannot imagine anyone accusing any Mem
ber of the Court of voting one way or the other because of
that Justice’s own policy preferences.” Ante, at 106. I can
readily imagine it, given that the Court’s opinion begins with
a lengthy description of why the system its judgment ap
proves is the better one. But even assuming that, in this
rare case, the Justices’ departure from the enacted law has
nothing to do with their policy view that it is a bad law,
nothing in Justice Stevens’ separate opinion limits his ap

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:51] PAGES PGT: OPIN
118 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
proach to such rarities. Why should we suppose that in
matters more likely to arouse the judicial libido—voting
rights, antidiscrimination laws, or environmental protection,
to name only a few—a judge in the School of Textual Subver
sion would not find it convenient (yea, righteous!) to assume
that Congress must have meant, not what it said, but what
he knows to be best?
Lest there be any confusion on the point, I must discuss
briefly the two cases Justice Stevens puts forward, ante,
at 104–105, as demonstrating this Court’s recent endorse
ment of his unorthodox views. They demonstrate just the
opposite. Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564
(1982), involved a maritime statute that required the master
of a vessel to furnish unpaid wages to a seaman within a
specified period after the seaman’s discharge, and further
provided that a master who failed to do so without sufficient
cause “ ‘shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to two days’ pay
for each and every day during which payment is delayed.’ ”
Id., at 570 (quoting 46 U. S. C. § 596 (1976 ed.)). We ex
plained that “Congress intended the statute to mean exactly
what its plain language says,” 458 U. S., at 574, and held that
the seaman was entitled to double wages for every day dur
ing which payment was delayed, even for the period in which
he had obtained alternative employment. The result was
that the seaman would receive approximately $300,000 for
his master’s improper withholding of $412.50, id., at 575,
even though “[i]t [was] probably true that Congress did not
precisely envision the grossness of the difference . . . be
tween the actual wages withheld and the amount of the
award required by the statute,” id., at 576. We suggested
in dicta that there might be a “rare cas[e]” in which the
Court could relax its steadfastness to statutory text, id., at
571, but if Griffin itself did not qualify, it is hard to imagine
what would. The principle Justice Stevens would ascribe
to Griffin is in fact the one he advocated in dissent. “[T]his
is one of the cases in which the exercise of judgment dictates

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:52] PAGES PGT: OPIN
119 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
a departure from the literal text in order to be faithful to
the legislative will.” Id., at 586 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
The second case Justice Stevens relies upon, United
States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235 (1989), is
equally inapt. The Court’s opinion there (unlike the one
here) explained that our analysis “must begin . . . with the
language of the statute itself,” and concluded that that was
“also where the inquiry should end, for where . . . the stat
ute’s language is plain, ‘the sole function of the courts is to
enforce it according to its terms.’ ” Id., at 241 (quoting
Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 485 (1917)). My
“fifth vote” in Ron Pair was thus only “decisive,” ante, at
105 (Stevens, J., concurring), in reaffirming this Court’s ad
herence to statutory text, decisively preventing it from fall
ing off the precipice it plunges over today.
Contrary to the Court and Justice Stevens, I do not
believe that what we are sure the Legislature meant to say
can trump what it did say. Citizens arrange their affairs
not on the basis of their legislators’ unexpressed intent, but
on the basis of the law as it is written and promulgated.
I think it terribly unfair to expect that the two rural school
districts that are petitioners here should have pored over
some 30 years of regulatory history to divine Congress’s
“real” objective (and with it the “real” intent that a majority
of Justices would find honest and true). To be governed by
legislated text rather than legislators’ intentions is what it
means to be “a Government of laws, not of men.” And in
the last analysis the opposite approach is no more beneficial
to the governors than it is to the governed. By “depriving
legislators of the assurance that ordinary terms, used in an
ordinary context, will be given a predictable meaning,” we
deprive Congress of “a sure means by which it may work the
people’s will.” Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 417 (1991)
(Scalia, J., dissenting).
I do not purport to know what Congress thought it was
doing when it amended the Impact Aid program in 1994.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:52] PAGES PGT: OPIN
120 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
But even indulging Justice Stevens’ erroneous premise
that there exists a “legislative intent” separate and apart
from the statutory text, ante, at 105 (concurring opinion),
I do not see how the Court can possibly say, with any meas
ure of confidence, that Congress wished one thing rather
than another. There is ample evidence, for example, that at
the time it amended the Impact Aid statute, Congress knew
exactly how to incorporate student population into a dispar
ity calculation. Most prominently, in the very same Act that
added § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) to the Impact Aid program, Congress
established the Education Finance Incentive Program,
known as EFIG. See Improving America’s Schools Act of
1994, 108 Stat. 3575. That statute allocates grants to States
based in part on an “equity factor” which requires a dis
parity calculation similar to that in the Impact Aid statute.
See 20 U. S. C. § 6337(b)(1)(A) (2000 ed., Supp. IV). In
EFIG, however, Congress specifically required the Secretary
to take student population into account: “[T]he Secretary
shall weigh the variation between per-pupil expenditures in
each local educational agency . . . according to the num
ber of pupils served by the local educational agency.”
§ 6337(b)(3)(A)(ii)(II) (emphasis added); see also Brief for
Federal Respondent 28–29. And there is more. In EFIG,
Congress expressly provided that a State would be accorded
a favorable “equity factor” rating if it was considered equal
ized under the Secretary’s Impact Aid regulations. See
§ 6337(b)(3)(B) (2000 ed., Supp. IV). Congress thus explic
itly incorporated the Impact Aid regulations into EFIG, but
did no such thing with respect to the Impact Aid statute
itself. All this on the very same day.
Nor do I see any significance in the fact that no legislator
in 1994 expressed the view that § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) was de
signed to upend the Secretary’s equalization formula. Ante,
at 91 (majority opinion). It is quite plausible—indeed, emi
nently plausible—that the Members of Congress took the

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:52] PAGES PGT: OPIN
121 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Scalia, J., dissenting
plain meaning of the language which the Secretary himself
had proposed to be what the Secretary himself had pre
viously been doing. It is bad enough for this Court to con
sider legislative materials beyond the statutory text in aid
of resolving ambiguity, but it is truly unreasonable to require
such extratextual evidence as a precondition for enforcing
an unambiguous congressional mandate. See Koons Buick
Pontiac GMC, Inc. v. Nigh, 543 U. S. 50, 73–74 (2004)
(Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court points to the fact that
“no Member of Congress has ever criticized the method the
[Secretary’s] regulation[s] sets forth.” Ante, at 90. But
can it really be that this case turns, in the Court’s view, on
whether a freshman Congressman from New Mexico gave
a floor speech that only late-night C–SPAN junkies would
witness? The only fair inference from Congress’s silence is
that Congress had nothing further to say, its statutory text
doing all of the talking.
Finally, the Court expresses its belief that Congress must
have intended to adopt the Secretary’s pre-1994 disparity
test because that test is the more reasonable one, better able
to account for States with small numbers of large LEAs, or
large numbers of small ones. See ante, at 91–93. This, to
tell the truth, is the core of the opinion. As I have sug
gested, it is no accident that the countertextual legislative
intent judges perceive invariably accords with what judges
think best. It seems to me, however, that this Court is no
more capable of saying with certainty what is best in this
area than it is of saying with certainty (apart from the text)
what Congress intended. There is good reason to be con
cerned—in the implementation of a statute that makes a lim
ited exception for States that have “in effect a program
of State aid that equalizes expenditures for free public
education among local educational agencies,” 20 U. S. C.
§ 7709(b)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis added)—that the
Secretary’s methodology eliminates from the disparity calcu

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:52] PAGES PGT: OPIN
122 ZUNI PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST. NO. 89 v. DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Scalia, J., dissenting
lation too many LEAs. In the certification at issue in this
very case, the Secretary excluded 23 of New Mexico’s 89
LEAs, approximately 26%. Is this Court such an expert in
school finance that it can affirm the desirability of excluding
one in four of New Mexico’s LEAs from consideration?
As for the Secretary’s concerns about the discrepancy
between large and small LEAs, does the Court have any
basis for its apparent confidence that other parts of the Im
pact Aid statute do not adequately address the problem?
Immediately after setting forth the 95th and 5th percentile
cutoffs, § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i), the statute instructs the Secretary
to “take into account the extent to which a program of State
aid reflects the additional cost of providing free public edu
cation in particular types of local educational agencies, such
as those that are geographically isolated, or to particu
lar types of students, such as children with disabilities.”
§ 7709(b)(2)(B)(ii). Respondents do not explain why the Sec
retary could not use § 7709(b)(2)(B)(ii) to temper any un
intended effects of § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i). Respondents further
maintain that States could take advantage of the statute’s
plain meaning by subdividing their LEAs. But again, the
statute itself contains a remedy. Under § 7713(9)(B)(ii),
“[t]he term ‘local educational agency’ does not include any
agency or school authority that the Secretary determines on
a case-by-case basis . . . is not constituted or reconstituted
for legitimate educational purposes.”
* * *
The only sure indication of what Congress intended is
what Congress enacted; and even if there is a difference be
tween the two, the rule of law demands that the latter pre
vail. This case will live with Church of the Holy Trinity as
an exemplar of judicial disregard of crystal-clear text. We
must interpret the law as Congress has written it, not as we
would wish it to be. I would reverse the judgment of the
Court of Appeals.

550US1 Unit: $U30 [07-28-10 11:00:52] PAGES PGT: OPIN
123 Cite as: 550 U. S. 81 (2007)
Souter, J., dissenting
Justice Souter, dissenting.
I agree with the Court that Congress probably intended,
or at least understood, that the Secretary would continue to
follow the methodology devised prior to passage of the cur
rent statute in 1994, see ante, at 90–91. But for reasons set
out in Justice Scalia’s dissent, I find the statutory lan
guage unambiguous and inapt to authorize that methodology,
and I therefore join Part I of his dissenting opinion.