Editorial: Education challenges

Utah no longer can say with any credibility that it devotes a higher percentage of its residents' personal income to fund public education than nearly every other state. That had been the standard comeback to the often-cited other side of the coin, that Utah spends less per pupil than any other state. A new study by the Utah Foundation, an independent research group, effectively lays that to rest.

The study found that, since 1992, the state increasingly has devoted less of its per capita income to education, falling from $56.44 for every $1,000 earned to $47.69 in 2009. That moved the state down from eighth in the nation to 26th.

It's a sobering statistic, but only when placed alongside an earlier Foundation report that Utah students are under-performing when compared with students in states with similar demographics.

And yet it's likely measuring the wrong factor. The state's education establishment seems singularly focused on funding as a corollary to successful teaching. In fact, there is no such demonstrable relationship. Using SAT scores as a measure, Vermont, a state typically among the highest in per pupil expenditures, generally finishes in the middle of the pack in terms of its students' scores. Utah students, meanwhile, typically finish far from the bottom.

Meanwhile, schools in foreign lands that sometimes are held up as superior to those in the United States spend far less per pupil than those in the United States. Sweden, for example, spends just more than 60 percent of the average per pupil expenditure in this country.

Utahns shouldn't expect to rise above last place in per pupil spending any time soon. As the Utah Foundation report notes, moving up only one spot on that list would require a $392 million increase in funding. To get to the national average would cost $2.2 billion. State lawmakers are skittish about raising taxes, and for good reason. Utah has received much good publicity recently as being a business- and family-friendly state poised to rebound from economic stagnation. The best way to increase school funding is to allow the economy to grow.

Given the disconnect between funding and outcomes, and the state's inability to devote much more in taxes to public schools, the answers to school performance must come through innovation. Unfortunately, the structure of public education tends to be an impediment. Rigid labor contracts and the monopolistic nature of public schools shield the system from competition and new ways of thinking. Charter schools offer some hope, but their growth within the public system often is labored and resented by the establishment. In the meantime, Utah faces new challenges from an influx of disadvantaged and non-English-speaking students.

There is no shortage of good ideas floating around to inspire innovative thought. One of these has come from The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, which has suggested a system that would allow students to graduate when they are ready, not when they have devoted enough time in school.

Utah's schools shouldn't expect piles of new cash. But the people of Utah ought to expect radical new ideas. They ought to expect their leaders to ask themselves how they would build a world-class education system from the bottom up, if given the chance, and then work to make that vision a reality.