Former Gov. Mike Leavitt publicly positioned himself as the Beehive State's education governor.

With news media in tow, he would walk schoolkids across a busy street; sport a Cat-in-the-Hat cap and read to little ones; gather elementary students around him to announce how much money he wanted to give schools.

More than half of the initiatives he rolled out in 11 state-of-the-state speeches addressed education — primarily, elementary, middle and high schools.

Some of the initiatives caught on. Others faded into obscurity, though they continue in a few school districts — alternative middle schools in Box Elder County, for instance.

Leavitt believes he has left schools in better shape than they were in 1992, when voters elected the Cedar City native to lead the state for the first of three terms.

"My goal as governor has been to leave it better than I found it, plant seeds for a future generation, and give it all I have," said Leavitt, fresh from one in a series of U.S. Senate hearings before he was confirmed last month as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"The question that has to be looked at this point is, is the system getting better, are we moving in the right direction, has education improved? And I would think the answer is, yes. It has improved. It has not improved as much as I would hope it will in the future.

And I hope the things we have done have sown seeds of improvement."

Politically, Leavitt has done well for schools, many public education officials say. He has kept schools at the center of attention in the legislative budgeting process, and their needs and concerns at the forefront of public discussion.

And his successor, Gov. Olene Walker, made it clear during her inauguration speech Wednesday that she would continue that legacy.

"Truly effective political leaders mobilize the thinking of citizens. They communicate a vision and inspire us to do better," said Richard West, professor and executive director of Utah State University's Center for the School of the Future. "We've got a long ways to go (in education), but it's exciting. It's not that we don't know how to be better; we just have got to figure out ways of providing a complete implementation of what works."

Leavitt, in his 1992 run for governor, outlined ways to do just that. He touted long-term improvements over more quick or radical fixes, including vouchers for private school tuition. And that won Leavitt, a moderate Republican, a loyal following that included the 18,000-member Utah Education Association.

Over time, Leavitt has not wavered from his education goals, from literacy to class-size reduction.