IN THEIR ZEAL to support choice, federal education regulators have fired a cannon at the walls separating suburban and city school districts. Regulations taking effect Jan. 2 direct school districts to transfer some of their low-achieving and low-income students to good schools in neighboring jurisdictions - if good schools cannot be found in their home districts.

The goal is worthy: A child should be allowed to escape a failing neighborhood public school. And with its new regulations, the federal Department of Education will play hardball with Baltimore City and other districts that didn't accommodate all the eligible students in the 2002-2003 school year.

Now "no room" is no excuse. School districts have been told to add classrooms to their better schools to meet the need. They may provide tutoring and other services in some reforming schools to comply with the law (and some Maryland officials hope that doing so will help them avoid many transfers). But if they end up short of better schools, the regulations say they must, "to the extent practicable, establish a cooperative agreement" with other districts.

Talk about a political non-starter and emotional flame-thrower. An estimated 60,000 Maryland children - mostly in Baltimore City and Prince George's County - have been identified by the state as eligible for "No Child Left Behind" transfers.

The regulation offers no incentive to districts to accept their neighbors' poor and poorly educated children. It is oblivious to a districts' prior efforts to control class size or school crowding. It requires the home district to pay for transfers' transportation, but makes no provision for the cost of schooling.

It's easy to see how critics interpret these regulations as the Bush administration laying groundwork for voucher programs and charter schools.

But there is potentially an even larger problem: It's one thing to make sure the student "arrives," but quite another to ensure that he "thrives." The regulations assume that transplanting the student to a good school improves his or her prospects, without acknowledging the teaching and support-system changes that may be needed to ensure academic success and foster cross-town relationships with parents.

The regulators also seem blind to the barriers built by the societal, cultural and financial choices that families make for the sake of personal comfort, property values and education; race and class are undeniably factors, too.

School systems across the country are struggling with how and whether to comply with these new rules. The state Department of Education and Maryland's superintendents have been talking; Maryland may "encourage" some districts to form pacts along some borders where schools on both sides might benefit. It's still unclear how these might operate or be funded. Even so, given the history, climate and politics of local control - and the sheer size of the population defined as eligible for a ticket to a better school - there likely would not be enough takers to solve the problem.

What is the alternative? What should have been done in the first place: Fix the broken neighborhood schools serving so many of Maryland's neediest children. It's a shame that it takes an onerous mandate resembling voluntary busing to make people see the value of doing the right thing.