Education in Utah…
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | Comments Off
My apologies to my loyal reader or two, it’s been too long since I’ve made a post. By way of making excuses, my time has been pretty chewed up with work and family, moving into a new house and all of that fun domestic kind of stuff. That being said, however, NonPart is back in business for the time being. It is my intention over the course of the next few months to move this blog to my personal website and dedicating this site to the creation of the NONPART PAC. NONPART will be exactly what it sounds, a Political Action Committee dedicated to the battle against the ridiculous 2-party system that is currently leading this nation down the path to self-destruction. More on that subject to follow…
Today’s topic is Utah’s education system and the miserable failure it has become. Utah, like many other states, is currently facing a significant budget shortfall. Our esteemed elected employees, in their finite wisdom, will be making cuts to a number of state programs. In typical fashion, however, they will be making the most significant cuts in the wrong areas, such as education.
The first of these ridiculous “cost-saving” proposals comes from our friend Buttars (Senator Chris Buttars, West Jordan Republican). Old man Buttars has been preaching about the waste of funding that is the 12th grade, and proposing that Utah could save some $60 million by allowing students with the appropriate amount of credits to graduate prior to their senior year and move on. While this may sound good to a few random idiots, on paper, I have to ask how this will save any money? As long as there is a student in the 12th grade, the teachers will have to be there to provide education. Those teachers will still require payment, those classrooms will remain open, and those facilities (schools) will still consume electricity, gas, etc…. From whence comes all of these savings, Senator Buttars?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than Buttars, however, the Jordan School District steps up to the plate. Jordan District is anticipating a shortfall in the neighborhood of $30 million.These administrative geniuses are considering monumental staff decreases that will result in increased class sizes, among other things. What I don’t understand is how Jordan District can justify building a big, beautiful new building on prime real estate behind Jordan Landing in the midst of looming budget problems. The normal argument here is that a building comes from the “capital budget” and probably has some sort of bond attached to it, but the reality of the situation is that the money still has to come from somewhere.
Here’s a suggestion for the State of Utah. Get rid of the damn school districts. Manage education in Utah out of the State Office of Education, isn’t that why it’s there? If there is additional administration that is required, put some additional staff in the schools to handle the job. Sell or lease out the district office buildings. Financially, take all of the tax money and put it in one big fund for education that should then be divided up to the schools equally on the basis of the number of students in the schools.
Will that solve the education funding issues in Utah? Probably not. Here are a few other suggestions:
- Get the state government out of the advertising business. How much money does Utah spend every year on anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-texting, safe driving advertisements via billboard, print media, radio, and TV? Seems to me that that money could be better spent on the education of our children.
- Eliminate all property tax exemptions. Honestly folks, if you can afford to buy/build a building, you can afford to pay the damn taxes on it. Churches, credit unions, and non-profit hospitals chew up huge amounts of land in the state, land that should be taxed at levels comparable to what the rest of us pay.
The bottom line is this: we’ve become a society that is way too dependent upon government spending for everything. We expect our government to pay for all types of ridiculous things, pet projects for everyone under the sun – yet we aren’t willing to find appropriate sources to pay for those programs. It is long past time that we take a good hard look at government programs and government spending and make the hard choices. Yes, it’s going to hurt in the short term, but the trend of insane government spending has to be reversed if we’re going to maintain our necessary programs, such as providing a quality education to our children.
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