Whose mediocrity?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Sen. Howard Stephenson has one, seemingly all-consuming goal: to privatize public schools.

Utahns who support their neighborhood schools thwarted his efforts to divert their tax money from public to private schools with a voucher law in 2007. But, like Jack Nicholson's persistent character in the horror film "The Shining," he's baaack.

And this time we really should have seen it coming.

In this year's session of the Legislature, where Stephenson serves as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, legislators passed a law to require the State Office of Education to come up with a grading system for schools. The assigning of letter grades — A, B, C, D or F — to all Utah public schools appeared to be simply another way for the Legislature to blame schools that are struggling to meet the needs of diverse student bodies with inadequate funding.

But now it seems clear that the school grading system will provide Stephenson and his like-minded colleagues ready ammunition to use in eliminating as many public schools as they can, replacing them with private schools paid for with taxpayer money.

His plan is to "dismantle" schools that receive F grades, then request bids from private developers to create substitute schools that parents would run. Pardon us if we are skeptical when Stephenson says his primary concern is for students who are being "punished" through "mediocre delivery of education." His and other legislators' absolute refusal to consider any method of substantially increasing education funding as school enrollments continue to explode leaves little doubt about who, exactly, is the cause of "mediocre delivery of education."

We can almost see the entrepreneurs circling, waiting for the bids to be let. Some qualified and credible, to be sure, but others out to take advantage of the taxpayers largesse. Based on the history of public charter schools, we would not be surprised if some of those entrepreneurs were current or former members of the Legislature who support this push to privatize.

And what about charter schools? Once the pets of these same anti-public school legislators, charters exist to provide the very thing Stephenson says is needed: the opportunity for parents or other groups, including companies run by legislators, to organize schools funded with taxpayer money.

But the Legislature has not been happy with the lukewarm success of charters in Utah. So, once again, Stephenson is calling for all-out privatization. This time, at least, he's not hiding his intentions.