Union, States Wage Frontal Attack on NCLB

Pressure Rises: While Utah passes bill, NEA files suit, and Connecticut prepares to do same.

Widespread sniping at the Bush administration’s centerpiece education law escalated into a frontal attack last week as the nation’s largest teachers’ union and several school districts sued federal officials over the measure, just a day after the Utah legislature approved a bill challenging the reach of the law.

The National Education Association’s suit follows an announcement by the Connecticut attorney general this month that his state plans litigation similar to the union’s.

Observers are divided on how formidable the legal and legislative assaults might prove. But they are largely united on the political symbolism of so much happening at once: Resistance to...