Col. Albert Sidney Johnston was sent by the U.S. government to subdue the Salt Lake settlers. They didn't take kindly to federal troops marching into town and threatened to burn their own city to the ground. Eventually, the two sides reached an uneasy co-existence.

Though less dramatic, the rebuke of President Bush's education reform smacks of that hands-off fervor.

"I don't like to be threatened," said Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan, of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' letter warning that passage of House Bill 1001 could mean the withdrawal of up to $76 million in federal funds. "They can take the stinkin' money and go back to Washington with it."

But as the smoke clears after the Legislature's resounding passage of the bill, its ramifications are still murky. It may feel good to tell Washington to butt out, but the new law may not be a winner for Utah children.

NCLB requires schools to be accountable for the progress of all students, specifically those in racial and ethnic groups, English learners, those from low-income families and students with disabilities, and it provides sanctions when they do not make adequate progress. HB1001 directs state education officials to ignore provisions of NCLB that conflict with Utah policy or that require state funding.

Our concern, and the concern of Utah's minority community, is that in its zeal to defy Washington, the Legislature may allow schools to forsake the focus on underachieving students that NCLB has rightly forced.

Utah has an embarrassing gap between the achievement of minority students and their white classmates. That gap must be a primary target of Utah's education reform. NCLB, with all its faults, provides a needed catalyst for narrowing that gap. U-PASS, Utah's alternative to NCLB, should provide a similar catalyst.

Further, it's easy to tell the feds to take their money and go; replacing it would be difficult. Utah's own education reform plan is largely unfunded and money will grow tighter as 145,000 new students arrive in already-crowded classrooms in the coming decade.

The new law must be carefully applied. If it isn't, Utah's minority children will be the losers.