[JURIST] US District Judge Mark Kravitz Wednesday dismissed [text, PDF] three of four counts of a lawsuit [backgrounder] filed by the state of Connecticut against the US Department of Education [official website] claiming that provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act [PDF text] constitute unconstitutional unfunded mandates. Kravitz rejected the counts on jurisdictional grounds, but refused to grant a US motion to dismiss [JURIST report]. Connecticut filed its initial lawsuit [PDF complaint; JURIST report] challenging the No Child Left Behind Act in August 2005.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal [official website] said Karavitz's ruling should not be regarded as a defeat because of its technical nature. Connecticut will still be able to pursue the fourth count of its complaint, which claims the Department of Education wrongly denied the state's proposal for an alternative testing scheme. WFSB News has more.