This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Education in Utah has been all over the news pages this past week. High school dropouts were asked to explain why they quit school; state Superintendent Larry Shumway said inadequate funding is hurting education; and Gov. Gary Herbert urged high school students to earn college degrees.
Of course, all three are related, but the players are coming from vastly different perspectives. And their approaches show how well, or how poorly, they grasp the reality of public education in the Beehive State.
It seems to us that Shumway understands the problem underlying Utah's plunging graduation rates, especially among minority students. Herbert, meanwhile, was talking to the wrong group. He should know better: The children who need encouragement aren't those still filling seats in high school classes.
Those who really need help and aren't getting it are the ones who dropped out in junior high because they were so far behind they lost all hope of succeeding. And even if we're talking about the white, middle-class students who are the most likely to stay in school, the right time to talk about college is when they are in junior high and choosing classes for the next four years of public school.
In fact, the seeds of failure are sown before children even enter first grade. Despite its claim to be a child-centered state, Utah, led by Republican legislators determined to divert funding away from public schools any way they can, fails to provide all its children the proven academic boost of all-day kindergarten.
It fails to provide the funds teachers need to help children who are behind, who are not attending school, who get little support at home. It fails to ensure that teachers have the resources and training to send children on from first to second to third grade with the most basic reading and math skills.
A teacher with 29 students simply doesn't have time to attend to each child's needs. Teacher aides are a luxury of the past; remedial courses are disappearing. New teachers, fresh out of college and bursting with energy and enthusiasm, are soon burned out. Many leave Utah classrooms before they reach the five-year mark.
Money is not the only answer. In fact, money is only important when there is not enough of it. And Utah is not providing enough to get the job done.
Goals, such as the latest one embraced by Utah leaders to have 66 percent of Utahns with postsecondary certificates or college degrees by 2020, are nothing but words on a page without an appropriate investment to back them up.