Ia a law that everyone ignores still a law?
Education Law Finds Few Fans in Utah
By SAM DILLON
Published: March 6, 2005
...Education officials nationwide are watching the events here to see whether this state will win in its game of brinkmanship with federal officials. Mr. Bush's 670-page law, signed in 2002, expands standardized testing and punishes schools where even small groups of students fail to make sufficient progress. But many states have challenged its enforcement.
In Utah, legislators say that the state's own system of monitoring student proficiency is better than Washington's and that the Bush administration is overreaching.
"This issue is a lot bigger than the details of teacher qualifications and student testing," said State Senator Thomas Hatch, the rancher who led the renegade Republicans this year. "This is about who controls education - the states or Washington."
Other states are also putting up a fight. Last week, the Texas commissioner of education ignored a ruling from Washington limiting the number of disabled students permitted to take an easier alternative to the standardized tests mandated for their grade level. Her decision prevented hundreds of Texas schools from falling short of the federal law's proficiency goals.
Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Education, said officials were "looking very closely" at the Texas decision "before we decide to take any action."
Virginia and North Dakota have been skirmishing with the Department of Education over various provisions of the law, and at least 15 state legislatures are considering challenges to it. Since Ms. Spellings pledged in January to enforce the law in a more "sensible and workable way" than her predecessor, her desk has accumulated a pile of requests from many states for changes in how the law is applied, officials said.
