Position Paper on Education Finance and Reform
For Utah Foundation Forum on September 7, 2006

Submitted by the Utah Parent Teacher Association

Prepared by Ronda Rose, Legislative Vice President, Utah PTA

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Utah PTA bases all of our positions on resolutions passed by our membership at resolution/business meetings held in the fall of each year.  We strongly support public school and full funding of them.  Each year as we lobby on behalf of the children of Utah we hear that we can’t afford to raise the amounts given to education for a multitude of reasons.  We often hear how over taxed the citizens of Utah are but when polls are taken, the people want the money to go to our schools not to frivolous tax returns. 

How do we make a difference?  We stop calling the increased revenue from the collection of the same rate of taxes “surplus.”  When the economy is thriving as it has been the last few years, this means the State of Utah has the money to fund the education of their children without raising taxes. We need to remember that this is money which our forefathers voted to invest in the future of our families and our state.  It belongs to the education of our children.  In times when money is scarce and tax revenues are down, we as parents can understand the need to tighten the tax belts, but when tax revenues are up we should be able to fund the education of our children.  It should become a priority.

Every year the legislature puts more and more demands on our education system while failing to increase or fund the mandates given.  The biggest example of this is the small class size mandate for K-3.  This mandate has been unfunded for the last several years.  Last year with a “surplus” this mandate could have been funded but it was not.  Legislators will tell you it is up to the local school boards to use the money they are sent to meet the mandates such as small class sizes, but when the amount of money the school districts receive is inadequate to meet the basic needs they can not then fund all the mandates. Class sizes can be lowered without incurring capital expenses by increasing the number of teachers in a classroom.  One suggestion that has merit is having a teacher who has successfully taught for several years mentor a new teacher who is just beginning.  This could serve two purposes; it would lower the teacher to student ratio, while giving the new teacher time to learn the ropes, thus meeting the mandate of lower class sizes.

The Legislature should not be allowed to pass any mandate without least 10 years full funding in place.  This would ease the load on our teachers and administrators and allow the education of our children to take place.  The responsibility of “how to educate our children” rests with the State School Board, the responsibility of funding the education comes from the constitution and is given to the Legislature.

You asked about Private School Vouchers.  Utah PTA is strongly opposed to this issue.  Our state and national resolutions call for full funding of our public schools.  If we as a state can not afford the two public school systems (community schools and charter schools) we presently have, how would we ever afford a third.  When public dollars are given to subsidize a private entity, that entity becomes a public cost.  The rational that this would save our state money and leave more dollars to educate our children has not proven to be true in any of the states that have used the vouchers or tax credits.

Utah PTA works for children in all areas not just education and we fully realize the implications of taking money from other areas of need within our state.  We believe that education can and should be funded fully.   Utah changed the state constitution to allow funding of both K-12 and Higher Education with Income Tax Collection.  Since the change went into effect we have fallen farther and farther down the list until we are now dead last in per pupil funding.  Our legislators need to take a hard look at how much they are sending to higher education, especially since so many of the higher education institutions are complaining that the students are not meeting the minimum requirements to attend.  We need to invest in our K-12 education to the maximum degree possible. 

If we truly believe that our children are our future then we need to begin to walk the walk and not just talk the talk and use the taxes collected to fund our education system.