Utah Kicks Up

In what the NYTimes is calling "a stinging rebuke" of the Bush administration's education policies, the Republican-dominated Utah state legislature yesterday passed a bill that "orders state officials to ignore provisions of the federal law that conflict with Utah's education goals or that require state financing."

If Utah gets away with it, other states will follow suit: "Federal officials fear Utah's action could embolden other states to resist what many states consider intrusive or unfunded provisions of the federal law, known as No Child Left Behind."

Not-so-subtle threats did not work to curb the Utahns appetite for defiance: "Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings warned in a letter to Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah on Monday, however, that depending on how the state were to apply the bill's provisions, the Department of Education might withhold $76 million of the $107 million that Utah receives in federal education money."

To which one state legislator replied, "Keep your stinking money!"

No point in threatening Mormons. They're not known for their proclivities toward compromise. That's why the state of Utah exists.

When I lived in Salt Lake City for four years, the schools were pretty good -- actually, damn good -- though there was virtually no separation of church and state. But then, when I went to public school in West Texas, there was virtually no separation of church and state, either. Only it was Baptists in Texas, who at least took their several wives serially.