Utah close to cutting loose from NCLB.

Despite the Utah House of Representatives giving a thumbs-up to a proposed bill that would give higher priority to local educational goals than to those under the federal No Child Left Behind law, the bill is on hold after Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. called a special legislative session for April 20 to negotiate flexibility under the law.

The bill would have the state use the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, or U-PASS, as the state's accountability system, according to Ray Timothy, associate superintendent of law, legislation and educational services at the Utah State Office of Education. The proposed bill also states Utah would not use state monies for federal programs.

"We think U-PASS is far superior to NCLB," Timothy says. "It's a growth model. We want to be held accountable for student progress."

But he says to hold every student with different backgrounds to the same standards and times, which NCLB wants, is "unrealistic."

Utah is among several states considering challenges to NCLB, including Colorado, Nebraska and Vermont. The U.S. education department turned down Connecticut's request to be exempted from expanding school testing to grades 3, 5 and 7. And in Texas, Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley changed the accountability rules to reduce the number of failing schools in the state, mainly based on standardized testing of special education students.

Last year, the Utah House proposed a bill prohibiting spending state money to comply with the law but the federal government threatened to withhold $106 million in education funding.

This bill is different.

"Whatever hoops we have to jump through to meet the NCLB requirements we will do," Timothy adds, noting that the state should still receive federal Title I funds. But the state won't follow NCLB's adequate yearly progress parameters. Instead, state reports will show if schools made adequate progress based on U-PASS, possibly noting whether or not the school made AYP, he says.

State Rep. Margaret Dayton, a Republican and Bush supporter, sponsored the bill, saying it reinforces that "education has traditionally been a states' rights issue." It will prioritize state resources on state goals and comply with federal goals as much as possible, Dayton says.