Utah House Votes Against Unfunded NCLB

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

 UTAH HOUSE REBUKES BUSH WITH ITS VOTE ON SCHOOL LAW

           New York Times -- February 11, 2004
                      by Sam Dillon

In a rebuke to the Bush administration, the Utah House voted yesterday 
to prohibit the state's education authorities from using any local money 
to comply with the president's signature education law, No Child Left 
Behind.

The vote, by a Republican-dominated chamber, comes after weeks of 
criticism by lawmakers arguing that the federal education measure 
impinges on the state's right to set its own education agenda and that 
the cost of compliance would be too high.

Utah's defiance is the most politically embarrassing challenge by any 
state so far to the wide-ranging federal law, which penalizes schools 
that fail to meet rising targets on standardized tests.

The White House and Department of Education had been so concerned about 
the Legislature's action that they sent a combined delegation of senior 
officials to Utah last week to discuss the legislators' concerns.

The Utah House backed off a more strongly worded bill that would have 
forced the state to turn its back on the federal law altogether, a move 
that would have cost Utah $103 million in federal financing.

The bill that the House approved instead permits the state to spend the 
$103 million, but not a penny of state money, to meet the federal law's 
requirements, state officials said. It passed the House by a vote of 64 
to 8, with 3 abstentions.

Representative Martin R. Stephens, the speaker of the House, called the 
measure a "statement bill."

"We are not opting out of No Child Left Behind, but there is some 
disparity of agreement about whether it's fully funded," Mr. Stephens 
said after Tuesday's vote. "So as we implement the law, we'll find out. 
If it is fully funded, then we'll implement it. And, if it's not, if 
there are requirements for which there are not enough federal funds, 
then we won't."

To become law, the measure needs the approval of the Senate, which 
Republicans control 22 to 7, and Gov. Olene S. Walker's signature. 
Steven O. Laing, Utah's state superintendent of public instruction, said 
in an interview after Tuesday's vote that he considered it likely that 
the bill would become law.

"We'll spend the federal money we get, and that's as much as we'll be 
able to do," Dr. Laing said. "And then we'll be subject to the 
consequences that come when we're not able to meet our moral obligation 
to help all students meet a rising standard."

Representative Margaret Dayton, an Orem Republican who was the bill's 
sponsor, argued to the White House and Education Department officials 
who visited Utah last week that the federal law violated states' rights, 
federal and state officials who sat in on the meetings said.

Eugene Hickok, the acting deputy secretary of education, said after the 
vote that he understood Utah's concerns for states' rights, but he 
disagreed with some legislators' assertion that the federal law injured 
them.

"This is just the politics of the process," Dr. Hickok said. "Every time 
the federal government gets engaged in education policy, some states get 
nervous. They have a concern as federalists, but we believe that the law 
respects and honors the principals of federalism."

The Utah vote was, for the Bush administration, the most troubling of a 
series of state measures that have either challenged the law or required 
studies to determine whether its costs are higher than the federal money 
it brings.

In January, the Virginia House of Delegates, which Republicans control, 
passed a resolution, 98 to 1, calling on Congress to exempt Virginia and 
other states from the law's provisions. The Virginia legislators' main 
criticism of the federal law was not its cost but at the way they said 
it complicated Virginia's effort to continue its own respected homegrown 
effort to raise standards.

The Virginia resolution said the federal law involved the "most sweeping 
intrusions into state and local control of education in the history of 
the United States."

Last year, Vermont enacted a law similar to Utah's measure, also 
prohibiting state officials from spending any of Vermont's own money to 
comply with the terms of the federal law, said Scott Young, an education 
analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Although the Utah bill is similar to Vermont's law, the embarrassment to 
the Bush administration would be larger if it became law because Utah is 
so thoroughly dominated by Republicans.