The Orem Republican was surrounded by supporters, including state legislators, education officials and U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, when she announced her new plan to loosen the federal government's stranglehold on education reform in Utah.

The other members of Utah's congressional delegation also back her revised proposal, and so do we.

Her legislation for 2005 allows state standards to trump federal policy when the two conflict or overlap. But first, state officials must convince the federal government that their programs can meet the goal of producing high school graduates who are prepared for good jobs or for success in college by 2014. No easy task, that.

Dayton reasonably bases her argument on a provision of No Child Left Behind that says the act does not give federal education officials the right to control a state or local school district's programs and cannot require schools to absorb costs not paid for by the federal government.

Wisely, Dayton has taken a more conciliatory approach in her second go-around. It would authorize the State Board of Education to ask federal officials for permission to use Utah's accountability plan, once it is finalized, instead of the complicated federal "annual yearly progress" requirements that fail to take into account the special circumstances of individual schools and seem to be a recipe for failure.

No Child Left Behind requires students in all demographic groups, including those with disabilities, English learners and the disadvantaged, in all types of schools to meet the same standards.

Dayton believes, as we do, that providing quality education is a function best handled by states, with the federal government monitoring the success of the states, not mandating one-size-fits-all programs for schools across the country.

Dayton's more tempered approach is an improvement over the bill she sponsored this year that would have essentially thumbed the state's nose at the federal government and likely would have cost the state $107 million in federal aid to Title I schools, those with large numbers of disadvantaged students.

The requirements of NCLB and broken federal funding promises are understandably frustrating in Utah, a state that does better than most in educating its children on a shoestring. But, no matter how irritating the federal law, shunning $107 million is not a gesture this cash-strapped state can afford to make at the expense of public education.

Dayton's new bill faces an uphill battle - first in the Legislature and then, if it passes, with bureaucrats in Washington. But it's a battle worth fighting.