Utahns hope to reform NCLB

WASHINGTON — As debate starts on Capitol Hill over the next federal education policy bill, Utah's congressional delegation is probing ways to give power back to the people who run local schools.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, introduced a bill last month that outlines changes to testing and gives flexibility to teacher requirements. Rep. Chris Cannon , R-Utah, has a panel of education experts working on recommendations on how to make the education law better, and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who was a high school teacher for almost 30 years, would rather allow Utah and other states to opt out of the federal rules and use federal money for education as it sees fit.

On Monday, the House Education and Labor Committee heard from 43 witnesses as part of reauthorization work on the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush administration's controversial federal education bill.

The law, known as NCLB, seeks to have all children, regardless of race, native language, disability or income, reading and doing math on grade level by 2014. It requires annual reports on progress toward the goal of each student and school. If one student group doesn't meet state test score goals, then the whole school fails to make adequate yearly progress.

There are other parts to the law, too, like requiring a teacher be highly qualified to teach, meaning a major in the subject, and sanctions for low-income schools not meeting state goals. Education officials decry the regulations as a one-size-fits-all program that doesn't really fit in, say, rural areas where teachers teach many subjects at once and students with disabilities.

The state receives about $109 million a year under No Child Left Behind, mostly for low-income and disadvantaged children.

The Utah Legislature has talked about opting out of the program they largely view as trampling on states' rights to govern public education. Twice state lawmakers have examined bills to assert their position, both to hasty response from the U.S. Department of Education seeking their retreat.

But lawmakers nevertheless passed a law requiring state resources be put toward state — not federal — education goals.

Now Congress is trying to figure out how to fix the federal law.

"We still feel like the general nature of the bill must be changed to restore the control of public schools to states and to their state leaderships," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said.

Matheson's bill would make changes Harrington's office has been clamoring for but been largely denied by the U.S. Department of Education. That includes letting states give schools credit for test score improvement and use several tests to determine whether schools make the grade.