Connecticut challenges No Child Left Behind

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The state of Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law, arguing it is illegal because it requires expensive testing and programs it doesn't pay for.

The lawsuit, which officials said was the first of its kind to be brought by a state government, asks a federal judge to declare that the federal government cannot require state and local money be used to meet federal testing goals.

Ordinarily, I'd say that a challenge to NCLB is a good thing, but it seems to me that the Connecticut lawsuit misses the mark. NCLB's chief fault is not that it fails to provide enough federal funds to implement the new education standards. The real problem is that the act authorizes a huge expansion by the federal government into an area that should properly, and constitutionally, be reserved to the states. That's why I like Utah's response a lot better:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP, May 2, 2005) - Gov. Jon Huntsman signed a measure Monday defying the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act despite a warning from the federal education secretary that it could cost $76 million in federal aid.

The bill represents the strongest stand against the federal law among 15 states considering anti-No Child Left Behind legislation this year. Utah is an overwhelmingly Republican state that strongly supported President Bush.

The legislation, passed during a special session of the Legislature last month, gives Utah’s education standards priority over federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. It lets education officials ignore provisions of federal law that conflict with the state’s program.