Stop bailing out Utah's education system

Bailout! Congress wrote a big check to bail out financial institutions that were on the verge of collapse. So, what's wrong with that? Utah lawmakers have been bailing out Utah's public education for years. And, like Congress, they never ask for a plan to improve education before approving their budget.

Bailout is what politicians do well. They ignore problems; and when these become public, politicians express outrage, blame the bureaucrats, and then impose more regulations or apply whatever quick-fix program their financial supporters have been pushing. All too many wait for a crisis before they act, such as our failing economy.

For decades, we have been warned our education system needed to be restructured in order to meet the challenges of a changing economy. Globalization has now rendered our public education obsolete in preparing our students to succeed in the global economy. Other nations are now doing a better job of preparing their students. They have restructured their education systems to respond to the new economy. We are still trying to educate our students with a system that, like our financial infrastructure, is ready to collapse.

Utah now has a dysfunctional education governance structure where no one can determine who is responsible and for what. Where does the "buck stop" — the Legislature, the state board or local school boards? We have a Legislature that is unable to carry out its leadership and policymaking role and resorts to meddling in the details of the system. Like Congress' recent bailout fiasco, Utah legislators continue to give money to the State Board of Education without asking for a plan to improve education. The state board, not having a coherent set of policies from lawmakers with expected outcomes to guide them, becomes preoccupied with studies and data-gathering to justify its existence; in turn, it cannot give clear directions to district school boards or monitor them. It's a mess to say the least, and the Legislature continues to bail out from dealing with the structural problem, which is required in any organization.