"The message to me as a minority is, if there's not enough (minority) students in my school . . . I may not count. My greatest concern is that is the message we're sending to our children."

Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, who had voted for HB135 in the legislative session, decried the change and called a community meeting for today.

Harrington says minority student performance still would be reported under U-PASS for groups with 15 or more students, exposing achievement gaps.

She's trying to stop misidentifying schools as needing improvement based on an arbitrary federal goal instead of the improvements of individual students. And requiring 40 students in a group came after discussions with educators and advisory groups including CMAC.

"Clearly we may need a dialogue on this," she said. "I'm not stuck on 40. It's the recommendation that came out of the group."

Money also repeatedly came up as a worry: What if the federal government views the bill as Utah falling out of compliance? Could it yank some $115 million?

Federal officials have raised the funding issue, Bridgewater said. But he feels that's because they've misunderstood HB135 as an opt-out bill.

Huntsman's legal counsel Mike Lee believes the bill won't jeopardize funds.

"I've grown increasingly comfortable with the idea we would not be breaching our obligation under No Child Left Behind," he said.

Harrington vowed to follow the spirit of NCLB so funds are not jeopardized.

But Bourdeaux wants a definitive answer on whether Utah could lose funds. No one has one — which is reason enough to stop pursuing the matter.

Meanwhile, he wants the bill amended to place the group number back at 10 for accountability purposes. Others wanted it to spell out what the state is going to do to help minority students, and a provision to ensure money isn't jeopardized.

The committee did not take up those amendments, which some called tangential. But they could be proposed in the special session.

"I think we all learned some things today," said Sen. Patrice Arent, D-South Cottonwood. "There's some tweaking we need to do."

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