However, their opinions on how to address those challenges run the gamut.

Some favor tuition tax credits and other measures that would draw students out of traditional public schools and into private or charter schools. Others argue the Legislature needs to make more of an investment. Still others say the existing system could operate more efficiently.

Gov. Olene Walker selected the candidates based on recommendations from an appointed nominating committee, as required by state law. Here is a look at the candidates in Districts 1, 4, 12 and 13 (the races in Districts 7, 8 and 11 will be published later this week):

District 1 (Box Elder, Cache and Rich counties; North Summit and South Summit school districts): Increased diversity poses the greatest challenge to schools because in Utah and nationwide, ethnic minorities don't perform as well as their Anglo peers on standardized tests, said District 1 incumbent Teresa Theurer.

"Dealing with that, I think, is a funding issue," she said.

Theurer also wants to continue building and implementing Performance Plus, the board's plan for increasing standards and ensuring students advance only when they master the curriculum.

Challenging Theurer is Philip Geary, a 35-year veteran of business management in the food, construction and oil industries.

Geary has been on the North Summit School Board for 12 years, but county redistricting made him ineligible to run for re-election this year. He is ready to tackle education issues at a state level anyway, he said, especially funding issues.

"We need professional development and pay increases so that we are in sync with" other states, he said.

District 4 (Northern and western Davis County and the Bonne-ville High School area of Weber County): Richard Sadler, 64, will take over the District 4 seat to be vacated by Joyce Richards. He is running unopposed.

Sadler is a history professor at Weber State University and the dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

District 12 (Most of Alpine School District and all of Wasatch district): Incumbent Mike Anderson, 55, has to run as a write-in candidate because Walker's nominating committee recommended that she select two other candidates for placement on the ballot: Mark Cluff, 49, of Alpine, and David Adamic, 38, of Cedar Hills.

Cluff believes his background in business and engineering would help him and the state board run a more efficient system. He manages the engineering-software company he started 14 years ago to assist manufacturing companies with their quality assurance.

While he is troubled by Utah's status as the nation's lowest in per-pupil funding, he also worries about high tax burdens and argues the state can spend education money more efficiently.

He also supports parental choice but says the state should try tuition tax credits on a limited, pilot basis to determine the financial impact on public schools.

"First and foremost, I am for public schools, but if we're going to have 140,000 more students [in the next decade], we need to look for more creative ways of placing them," he said.

He is married and has five daughters and one grandson.

Adamic's biggest priority is "repairing the board's failing relationship with the Legislature."

And as a charter-school founder who has worked with lawmakers on school-choice issues, he maintains he can do it by helping the board do a better job of carrying out legislative intent.

"The Legislature is passing education law with as much detail as they can because they don't trust the [state Office of Education's] implementation of policy," he said.

Adamic also believes schools can operate more efficiently and do more to focus on individual children.

He is a software engineer who earned a bachelor's degree through the University of Phoenix. He is married with four school-age children.

Anderson opted to launch a write-in candidacy because he wants to see Performance Plus carried out.

"I am very encouraged that we have the ability to test our children to evaluate their understanding of the core curriculum and then provide assistance where needed," he said.

In addition, he will continue to lobby for more education funding but vowed to use existing funds efficiently.

Anderson has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and spent most of his career running a commercial construction company that he founded. He is married with nine children and 16 grandchildren.

District 13 (All of Provo School District and the Orem portion of Alpine district): Thomas Gregory, 26, wants to help shape public education before his three small children start school in coming years.

He says tuition tax credits and other school-choice measures encourage competition and innovation within public schools. At the same time, however, he wants to maintain funding levels so that public schools can handle enrollment growth and an expected teacher shortage.

"We need to study both sides of tuition tax credits," he said. "There's a middle ground where successful compromise can be reached."

Gregory graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in computer science and is a business analyst at Overstock.com.

Running against Gregory is Brian Woodfield, a BYU chemistry professor who developed software that high schools and colleges use as virtual chemistry labs for students.

Woodfield wants to ensure schools have the tools they need to educate all children.

"My biggest priority is to find ways to increase efficiencies and better utilize the resources we have and, at the same time, fight for the resources education deserves." he said.

He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at BYU and his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. He is married with four school-age children.

rlynn@sltrib.com