William Mathis continues to cause trouble, but it is a good kind of trouble. Mathis is the superintendent of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, and he helped provide the leadership that led to a state Supreme Court ruling on behalf of a student from Whiting. That ruling, the Brigham decision, led to the adoption of Act 60, a progressive and innovative reform in the way the state funds education.

Now towns in Mathis' supervisory union plan to file a lawsuit in federal court challenging provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law, alleging that its requirements unfairly penalize poor towns.

In both cases, Mathis appears to be targeting educational systems with built-in biases. It was easy to see in the Brigham case.

Inequality in educational opportunity plagues the nation, and it is often based on inequalities in revenues available to different districts. Those inequalities give ample revenue to posh suburbs outside our cities but leave inner city schools impoverished. The same inequalities separated towns such as Whiting and Brandon from towns such as Killington and Dorset.

Defenders of the status quo in education used to argue that money was no guarantee of a good education and they saw no reason to change the way schools were funded. But when taxpayers in wealthy towns were forced to shoulder an educational burden equal to that in other towns, they felt aggrieved. Certainly, money is no guarantee. But it is a foundation that can affect the sturdiness of the building. And it is something that taxpayers and school boards have power to control.

In taking on No Child Left Behind, Mathis is attacking a bureaucratic monster. It is strange the way conservatives have acquiesced to the Bush administration's program of federal interference in local school governance. If Democrats had been behind the morass of No Child Left Behind, conservatives would have a field day attacking them for their big-government excesses.

The lawsuit prepared by Mathis challenges the provision of No Child Left Behind that requires schools to show adequate yearly progress or face a range of remedial and disciplinary actions. It turns out the schools having the hardest times showing adequate yearly progress are those with large numbers of poor students who come to school without the familial and cultural support that fosters education. Even within schools that are showing adequate progress, populations of poor students sometimes do not. In Mathis' view, penalizing schools because of the socioeconomic conditions of their communities is not fair.

Some things are obvious. Poor communities often need help improving their schools. Bureaucratic mandates and a regimen of tests are not likely to help much. Economic support — like that provided by Act 60 and its successor, Act 68 — will help. Educational leadership that encourages respect for education is also essential.

Reliance on standardized tests to reward schools and teachers is distorting and undermining education in America, and efforts to challenge the new educational bureaucracy are worthwhile. The justification for No Child Left Behind was to impose accountability, an imposition growing out of a lack of trust in teachers and schools. At the local level, Vermonters are used to working with teachers and schools at the grass roots to support schools and encourage a healthy respect for education. Guidance from Washington may be useful. Money from Washington can be helpful. Bureaucratic mandates punishing those already disadvantaged could do more harm than good.