Utah joins movement against education law

By Seattle Times staff and wire services

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Utah's Republican-dominated House voted yesterday to become the first state to scrap No Child Left Behind Act education mandates that would cost more than the federal government is willing to pay.

Republicans dropped a threat to abandon the Bush administration program altogether because that would have cost the state half of its annual federal education funding, or nearly $107 million. Instead, state representatives voted 64-8 to comply with only those mandates "where there is adequate federal funding."

It was the latest salvo in a revolt that has been building in classrooms and legislatures against the biggest education reform in a quarter-century. State and local education officials and lawmakers are upset over the stringency of testing requirements and the costs of implementation.

"What I think was a well-intended effort of government has had some serious consequences," said Republican state Rep. Margaret Dayton, sponsor of the Utah measure. "We gradually give up our state sovereignty when we accept our tax money back into the state with strings attached to it."

The bill, which still requires state Senate approval and the governor's signature, is the strongest position taken by lawmakers in 11 states who have introduced legislation or nonbinding resolutions challenging the 2002 law. Among the actions:

• In Virginia, the GOP-controlled House of Delegates voted 98-1 last month in favor of a resolution calling on Congress to exempt Virginia without penalty from "the most sweeping intrusions into state and local control of education in the history of the United States."

• In Hawaii, representatives approved a resolution asking state education administrators to consider giving up No Child funding until Congress provides more money. Hawaii hasn't left the program yet.

• In New Hampshire, the state is fighting the Education Department over who pays for student testing after legislators reduced state funding for testing to $1 in their budget.

• In Washington state, lawmakers are considering asking President Bush and the Congress to make changes in the law, including the way schools are judged for the academic performance of students in special-education programs, or those learning English as a second language. The proposed resolution also says it's more educationally sound to judge schools based on the amount of improvement they make over time. Under No Child Left Behind, states must set annual test-score goals that all schools must reach.

• Maine and Vermont are considering bills to prevent state funding of reforms.
 
• Several districts in Vermont and Connecticut have refused federal money rather than comply with all No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates.

The rebellion, in some cases led by GOP lawmakers, could endanger a signature achievement of the Bush administration in an election year. At the least, it highlights the frequent tensions between policies in Washington and their effects in the classroom.

"I think Bush got maximum benefit for this bill on the day he signed it," says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "Now that we're into the very difficult implementation problems, he's probably going to get tarnished with the backlash."

On one level, it's not surprising that the chorus of critics is growing louder. NCLB is the most-significant education reform in a generation, and it is a morass of complex requirements on everything from who is tested to who can teach.

Even the fiercest critics tend to agree with the law's philosophy, particularly its efforts to separate gains for groups such as low-income children and make schools accountable for progress in each group. They don't always agree with the implementation.

"Wealthy districts don't have to do much at all under this law," said Gary Orfield, a Harvard education professor. "Other districts face demands that are somewhere between difficult and absurd. It's putting maximum pressure on the most vulnerable districts."

A few states dislike federal intrusion into what's always been a state arena.

"There's not anything Virginia is going to learn from the fact that we have to give these additional tests," said Republican James Dillard of Virginia's House of Delegates. "If Clinton had done this, Republicans would have been up in arms." He pauses. "Republicans are up in arms."

For many of the states complaining, however, their problem isn't so much the law's details as the possibility that they may foot the bill. A recent Ohio study concluded the law would cost the state $1.5 billion a year to achieve 100 percent proficiency (a theoretical goal that most educators see as impossible). States worry that, amid their own tight budgets, they'll pay for tutoring, transferring and other mandates.

"They got burned" on federal laws like Medicare and special education, Jennings said. "They don't want to get burned on this."

Compiled from reports by The Christian Science Monitor, The Associated Press and Seattle Times staff reporter Linda Shaw.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company