Utah Is Unlikely Fly in Bush’s School Ointment

Salt Lake City

Utah state Rep. Margaret Dayton adores President Bush. Her conservative politics line up with his, and one of her favorite memories is of being at an intimate gathering and hearing the president echo her top priorities: God, family, and country.

Yet Rep. Dayton is driving one of Mr. Bush’s biggest education-related headaches. Last year, she led a nationally watched push for Utah to opt out of the No Child Left Behind Act—his signature school reform law. That effort failed only after federal officials traveled to Utah and helped convince lawmakers here that dropping out would cost the state at least $106 million in education aid.

Mrs. Dayton hasn’t given up, though. Like legislators in several other states—many of them fellow Republicans—she sees the law’s raft of prescriptions as encroaching on state and local turf and imposing unwarranted costs. As discontent with the law simmers, Mrs. Dayton is back with a modified proposal. Unanimously approved last week by the state’s House education committee, the plan is sure to draw attention again to Utah and cause...