Priority: The fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important.
Policy makers say not to worry: Public education is their priority.
However, it’s more a priority to exclude education funding from the tax reform proposal.
It’s more a priority to cut income tax, leaving public education a $600 million IOU.
It’s more a priority to expect localities to raise their taxes instead.
It’s more a priority to “hold harmless” public education, rather than provide more resources to rise above last-in-the-nation funding.
It’s more a priority to consider a constitutional guarantee dispensable.
The constitutional provision to fund public education from income tax has for generations signaled what should be our priority. Utah’s greatest generation recognized that a free and prosperous society was also an educated society, and a matter of social contract with freer future generations. That constitutional provision has stood as a durable intergenerational — if aspirational — commitment to public education.
With our booming economy, we should more fully benefit from the promise of that constitutional provision. We should make the education of future generations more of a priority.
Our values and commitment must match the legacy left us. At some point, that must take true priority.
Curtis Benjamin, Nibley