Utahns want education to remain a state issue

A number of years ago, futurist John Naisbitt said that successful organizations in the Knowledge Age must decentralize. Bureaucracies are being dismantled across the world. He said the almost perfect metaphor for the movement from bureaucracy to decentralized, highly capable local units is the shift from mainframe computers to networked PCs. "Whether president or CEO, if you are an old mainframe thinker, you are no longer relevant," Naisbitt said. For networked PCs, or for states in the union, to work well together, central standards are required. But the real power, and the flexibility to meet the standards, is out on the network.

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said states have an important role as laboratories of democracy. "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country," he said.

Education is a matter for the states, and Utah ought to hold firm and set an example for the rest of the country, even if it hurts a little.

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Republican LaVarr Webb was policy deputy to Gov. Mike Leavitt and Deseret News managing editor. He now is a political consultant and lobbyist. E-mail: lwebb@exoro.com. Democrat Frank Pignanelli is Salt Lake attorney, lobbyist and political adviser. A former candidate for Salt Lake mayor, Pignanelli served 10 years in the Utah House of Representatives, six years as House minority leader. Pignanelli's spouse, D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, is executive director of the state Department of Administrative Services in the Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. administration. E-mail: frankp@xmission.com.