Education in the Crosshairs

There is so much nail biting about budget shortfalls and necessary cuts to funding that everyone seems to be digging in to protect the items of their greatest concern. For me, public education is of very great concern. I will be sending more information about education issues in the legislative session but today I want to specifically address funding and local control.

The benefits of an educated public cross over into just about every area of public policy. Strong public education fosters a versatile and creative workforce, vigilant voters, a social conscience, better health, safety, and economic security. A decision to short change public education would bring about a decline in all these areas.

There are a mountain of education-related bills facing the legislature this year, as in previous years. This year, however, the budget constraints cast a shadow on everything. Drastic cuts have been proposed to both public education and higher education. Superintendent Randy Merrill has reported that any time the legislature talks about one percent of the education budget, it translates to half a million dollars in the Provo School District. The proposal to cut 15% would, says Dr. Merrill, leave us with a school system that you would not recognize. He states that he is trying to avoid increased class-size and maintain adequate employee salaries but calls to operate leaner over the past years have left us with very few areas to cut.

You would think that no one is naive enough to expect increased funding from the legislature at a time such as this but please watch for efforts to fund pet projects and then call it part of an existing budget. For example, last year when computer software for preschool programs was funded, it was called part of the education appropriation. Local school districts had no say as to whether they wanted or needed the preschool computer programs. The allocation was only for this particular product. This year there is a proposal that the legislature mandate implementing the Singapore Math program. There are curriculum offices in the State Office of Education and in each school district, but this legislation would override their authority and the money that comes with it would be earmarked. In essence, the districts are being asked to cut their budgets and then the funding for that budget is coming back with conditions set by the legislators. I do not advocate for or against Singapore Math. I do however feel that if local administrators are asked to cut their own budgets, we should see that they are given control of their funds to address local needs based on their assessments.