From Deseret News archives:
Is dead last good enough for our kids?
As in dead last in the nation in money spent on public school students.
According to news reports, all we need is another $300 million to improve our ranking — to No. 49.
Next goal: Let's overtake Mississippi!!!
At this point, the low ranking is no aberration — it's more like a habit. Or home. If there were 55 states, Utah would be 55th.
Never mind No Child Left Behind. What about the schools?
You can put any angle on this you want: Utah has more kids than other states; Utah students score well on tests so why do they need more money; Utah kids are the best in the universe, especially your kids. But education leaders have been bemoaning Utah's low ranking for years. They want more money for education, of course. Students could be better, they reason. If a football team were ranked No. 50, the coach would be fired.
They want Utah out of the cellar.
Politically speaking, this is like trying to move mountains, or fix I-15, or build Legacy Highway, or find a replacement for Stockton and Malone, or turn downtown Salt Lake into a happenin' place, or something impossible like that. The solution? Skip the politicians. Take it out of their hands.
That's what Sharlene Wells-Hawkes wants to do. The former Miss America is chief operating officer of StoryRock Inc., a company that provides software for multimedia, digital yearbooks to schools. Her company has agreed to donate 10 percent of all proceeds from Utah schools to a specific school in Utah that needs help. And she's throwing down the gauntlet for other companies to do the same.
"Why turn the money over to the government and have them decide what to do with it? Let's do an end-run," says Hawkes, speaking like the former ESPN sideline reporter that she is.
"We just need to take ownership. When corporations are doing well, they can adopt a school. Utah can go to the top. I mean, it's embarrassing. We're last! We're below Mississippi! There is a whole lot of politics involved. Let's just get out of politics and do this."
If nothing else, Utah's ranking is bad public relations for Utah, as Hawkes sees it. She met recently with Tim Bridgewater, the governor's deputy for education, as a first step to organize a coalition of companies willing to help schools. Bridgewater, it turns out, had been thinking about the same idea. They discussed the possibility of a name for the coalition — No School Left Behind.
There are some existing adopt-a-school programs in Utah in which companies volunteer to read to students or assist in the classroom in other ways. And there have been some efforts by a handful of companies to make donations to schools, but no broad-based, large-scale plan has been implemented.
Rather than penalize struggling schools a la No Child Left Behind, the coalition would help those schools. Hawkes envisions a coalition of 50 companies that would identify the bottom 50 schools and provide cash donations to pay directly for the specific needs of those schools, whether it means more computers or teachers or books or higher teacher salaries.
"Private companies don't want their money going up the line to some big pot in the administration," she says. "They want to see it go for specific things. Actual cash donations would make a difference in schools that are struggling. If you got 50 companies doing this, think what could be accomplished. It could be a model for the rest of the nation."
Who knows, if this thing works, anything is possible. Utah might even catch Mississippi.
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. E-mail drob@desnews.com.
