Should Baltimore children in failing schools get a chance to attend a successful suburban school instead? Under a provision of the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind law, they could -- if we had something called "regional cooperation" around here. Short of that, there is no way to force the issue.

But it may be coming.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, parents from across New Jersey have filed suit against the state board of education and several poor-performing school districts for the right to let their children transfer to other schools, public or private.

What we have here is a national test case of No Child Left Behind. It was filed on behalf of 60,000 students in 96 failing schools in 25 districts. If the suit is successful, students in such schools could switch to the public or even private school of their choice, regardless of geography - and their home district would have to pay for it, the Inquirer said.

"If decided in their favor," The Record newspaper in Bergen reported, "the suit could allow the state's poorest children to attend class in wealthy towns, trading dilapidated facilities and a culture of failure for cutting-edge resources and peers primed for learning."

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that fail to meet state standards for two years must offer students the option to transfer to another public school within the district or -- and this is key -- even to another district. "But," the Inquirer reported, "school-choice advocates say this is really no choice at all because there is often no room at the other schools and neighboring districts are not required to take them in."

I looked into this issue a couple of years ago and discovered that, for instance, the city could ask Baltimore County to take some transfers, but local and state educators said it was a non-starter. Politically, it did not seem feasible and the suburban schools supposedly could not handle the new kids; there was no room for them. Mostly, it was -- and is -- politics.

The intent of the suit is to provide choice. Right now, in certain school districts, children are shuffled from one failing school to another. Do you think Governor Ehrlich and Nancy Grasmick would go for this? Would Martin O'Malley? Imagine George Bush supporting de facto busing. As they say on the editorial page: This bears further watching.