Public education needs to return to core values

Last week, a single mom with four children who earns a living making tamales, and volunteers making burritos for the homeless, called and wanted to know where she could go to donate clothes for the victims of the tsunami.

It often seems that those with less are more giving than those of us who have so much. They practice what we preach, that "we are our brother's keeper."

Isn't this one of the basic "Utah values"?

It brought to mind how quickly we are moving to a two-tiered society — the haves and have-nots — and how public policy ignores our values. Best example, public education.

If you were to visit one of our low-income neighborhoods, you would see caring values in action. The "Greatest Generation" rose out of those neighborhoods that had white- and blue-collar workers, old, young, various disabilities and a rich mixture of different cultures. They attended the same schools, fought and played together. Though they spoke different languages, somehow they understood each other.

Those institutions that helped us learn how to live together are rapidly vanishing. Life is more impersonal and the "brother's keeper" value has been replaced with "I got mine and don't care about anybody else." We keep saying the "poor will always be with us." It may be true, but today we don't see them. We don't live in the same neighborhood, work at the same jobs, shop in the same stores, fight a war side by side, or go to the same schools.

Somehow we fail to see the results of the erosion of those values that guided our daily lives and reflected in our public policies. Let's take a few Utah values: we are our brother's keeper; the dignity of every individual; family; and compassion. If we were to apply a litmus test to see how many pieces of legislation recently passed had anything to do with the values we espouse, you would find few if any did so.

Legislators should ask themselves, as they debate legislation, how does it promote the good of the state and is it consistent with our core values? If it doesn't, and isn't, responsible leaders should not spend one tax penny on it and drop it. Unfortunately, that's not the case, especially when it comes to public education. Matter of fact, there is no discussion at all on the purpose of education (its mission), let alone how it promotes our core values.