But if you sent your kid to a school without enough money to keep the lights on, fix the hole in the roof and hire enough teachers, would those failing grades really be the child's fault?

The nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association started the State of the Parks program four years ago to assess the condition of the country's park system, and recently released its 17th report to coincide with Canyonlands' 40th anniversary Sunday. While the park has plenty of positives, particularly in educating the public with its interpretive centers, the report makes it clear Canyonlands has serious problems, almost all relating to money.

"Seventy-one percent of the park's historic structures are suffering from structural deterioration, and many of these could be lost in the next two to five years. That is absolutely a funding issue," said Mark Peterson, director of the Fort Collins-based State of the Parks program. "If you're not putting a new roof on your house every 20 years or so, you know you're going to have problems.

"Another funding issue is that less than 3 percent of the park has been surveyed for archaeological sites. That is particularly amazing when you think this is one of the richest archaeological areas in the country and this park is sitting in the heart of that archaeological treasure trove . . . How can the Park Service protect these sites when they're estimating that in 97 percent of the park, they don't know where these sites are?"

Canyonlands spokesman Paul Henderson doesn't think things are as grim as a cursory glance at the State of the Parks report might make them out to be, but agrees "it's a fact, only 3 or 4 percent of the park has been archaeologically mapped." He notes that to complete the job for the rest of the park would cost somewhere between $4 million and $5 million, an unlikely expense considering the park has a backlog of maintenance work that the report puts near $36 million, as well as a $2 million shortfall in its annual operating budget.

But things are tough all over in the National Park system, Henderson said, and most parks are facing the same funding challenges as Canyonlands. He said that the State of the Parks report is fair and doesn't include any big surprises to people at the park: "The problems they bring up are problems."

"The visitor still has a positive experience here," Henderson said, but "we can't go too many years into the future without our operating budget increasing."

Peterson is quick to praise Canyonlands for having some of the darkest night skies in the country, and some of the lowest levels of outside noise, as well as doing a great job with resource education. "They scored a 90 [in resource education] and that is certainly well above the average in terms of interpretive programs and talking with local people about the value of the park," Peterson said.

Within 18 months or so, Peterson hopes to have enough State of the Parks reports to easily show how they compare with one another. Certainly, he said, there is no lack of areas that need to be addressed by Congress.

"When the public goes to the parks, they have a wonderful experience," Peterson said. "They're told through the interpretive program what a marvelous place, what an intricate system, these places are, and they go away feeling really good about them. No one likes to talk about the challenges underneath the veneer, what the problems are."

nailen@sltrib.com