This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Changes to public education will mostly land outside the classroom this year, as lawmakers set their sights on funding formulas and administrative policy.
Of particular concern was equitable school funding, with lawmakers diverting $20 million to charters while creating a separate, revenue-neutral property tax levy for the alternative schools.
A proposal to push a third of future school investments to the lowest-funded school districts failed, but is expected to be studied during interim meetings this summer.
"I won't rest until we have equity," said Draper Republican Sen. Howard Stephenson.
Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh, president of the Utah Education Association, said the conversations too often have focused on budget equality, rather than equity, and ignored the diverse needs of Utah students.
All schools, charter and traditional, need more money, she said. But focusing on charters means extra funding for students who are, on average, whiter, wealthier and enrolled in smaller classes than their district peers.
And shuffling funds between schools and districts helps some students, she said, but doesn't change Utah's ranking as the lowest-funded school system in the country.
"Let's talk about 'equity,' not equal, and let's talk about 'adequate,' " she said. "Those two words need to go hand in hand."
Lawmakers were also skeptical of SAGE, the state's computer-based adaptive testing system.
The Legislature approved a bill removing SAGE scores from teacher evaluations, and school districts will now have the option of offering the ACT in place of SAGE for students in grade 11.
Gallagher-Fishbaugh said the decision to adjust teacher evaluations is "seven years overdue."
SAGE can generate valuable information, she said, but the test is misused as a punitive measure for educators.
"Tests are designed to inform instruction," she said. "They're not designed to grade a teacher."
Lawmakers were briefly presented with a proposal to ban SAGE, but the bill was set aside due to concerns about state programs like school grading that rely on the test, and federal requirements for annual testing.
"We have to have some way of measuring the effectiveness and the success of the public education system," state school board Chairman David Crandall said. "SAGE is the primary tool we use for that."
Since the original school grading bill was approved in 2011, the law has been amended every year. That trend continued in 2016, with lawmakers adopting a version that will increase the difficulty of reaching each grade level in years where 65 percent of schools earn either an "A" or "B" grade.
Those increases will stop when the grade levels reflect a traditional breakdown, with a school score of 90 percent earning an "A," 80 percent earning a "B" and so forth.
Schools will receive a 3 percent bump, or roughly $80 million, in per-pupil funding, and will have the opportunity to apply for part of a $15 million grant program for classroom technology.
Gallagher-Fishbaugh said a 2.5 percent increase is the minimum required to maintain current school funding levels.
That means little is left over, she said, for districts to increase teacher salaries or hire additional staff to shrink class sizes.
"We have a massive crisis in terms of a teacher shortage in this state," she said. "In order to attract and retain folks we need to be able to offer them a livable, competitive wage. And we can't do that in Utah."
The legislature also approved a $10 million expansion of public preschool, using federal welfare funding; a gun safety pilot program for eighth grade students; and a training program for school police officers aimed at reducing the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.
Lawmakers rejected a proposal to allow comprehensive sex education, and a $10 million expansion of full-day kindergarten failed to secure funding during budget negotiations.
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