Education

This report provides a listing of scores on the Iowa Tests for each public school in Utah, and it also examines other national tests that allow for direct comparison between states. In these tests, Utah Foundation selected states that are “demographic peers” to Utah – those states with similar levels of student poverty, similar education levels of students’ parents, and similar ethnic profiles.

After about ten years of decline, the Legislature has increased state funding effort for public education in the most recent two state budgets. This is the result of large state budget surpluses resulting from strong income tax growth. Funding effort is defined as total revenues for public education per $1,000 of personal income. When funding effort declines, it is because education funding is growing slower than Utah’s overall economy. When funding effort increases, education funding … Continued

Teachers are increasingly leaving their careers in the U.S. and in Utah. This, coupled with a decline in the number of college students studying to become teachers, is leading to teacher shortages. Utah schools are particularly vulnerable to teacher shortages now, because the student population is growing rapidly and will continue to do so through the year 2015.

Utah Foundation has written in the past about Utah’s “education paradox” — that despite one of the highest funding efforts in the nation, Utah continued to have the lowest per-pupil funding for K-12 public education. Education funding effort is a measure of how much we are willing to tax ourselves to fund schools. Utah has historically exerted a very high funding effort, even fifth highest in the nation in the mid-1990s. The paradox no longer … Continued