Reader comments
Utah still ranks last in student spending

While the legislature should be complimented for appropriating additional public education funds, Utah remains in last place by a substantial margin. This circumstance must change or Utah students will see the admirable scores on tests and high graduation rates disappear. Utah faces a severe shortage of teachers. Already Granite School District has over 100 openings for next year. There will be several hundred more by the time summer arrives. Other districts faces similar or more serious shortages. Where will Utah get several thousand teachers next year to fill vacancies and to staff new classes? More Utah teaching graduates leave Utah for positions in other states because pay is better outside of Utah. Hard decisions must be made soon about marked pay increases for teachers. Unless higher pay becomes a reality, we will see many classrooms without teachers when school begins in the near future. We can not continue to stack 'em deep and teach 'em cheap. Eventually the piper will be paid and that payment will be more expensive than what it would have cost to provide better funding for education. The old cliche holds true here - 'You can pay now or pay later.'

It is not how much you spend it is what you do with the money. There has to be a willingness to Teach and a willingness to learn. All the money in the world will not change that.

This is good news, not bad! A better headline would have been "Utah students excel, despite limited ed funds."

I am a product of Utah's public schools and am grateful for the start it gave me toward college and a great career. And I'm glad my parents and other taxpayers didn't have to pay and arm and a leg for my education. They did pay an arm, but not a leg. :-)

THE TEACHERS! For a state which is suppose to intelligence based..the reward for teaching goes untouched. We will pay in so many ways..lose some brilliant teachers who will go elsewhere. I know of many teachers who live in some dire situations with large families, remained committed , perform excellent then year after year aren't allowed to drink from the silver cup they so deserve to. Thanks to all the good teachers who have helped my children to succeed under some very trying situations large class size, no child left behind and lack of funding being paramount. With out you , we as a state will pay sooner or later!

That article is written to make it sound like school spending per pupil is a national sport and the winner spends the most money.
I would say that Utah leads the nation in conserving taxpayer monies and the rest of the states are the ones out of step.

I take particular interest in this bit of obfuscation from the article.

"Peterson said the reason for Utah's low per-pupil spending is two-fold. It's partially demographics, he says, noting that one in five Utahns are public school students compared to one in seven nationally."

Perhaps one in five may have been public school attendees or graduates at some point in their lifetime, but I hardly think the adult population is currently attending.
Obviously we do have some failing in the system when it comes to proper language skills to express an easily understood thought, but that has been a universal problem across the land since federal "Aid to Education" was ushered in by the good old boy, LBJ.
More money will never cure that as long as government mandated programs are allowed to dictate how funds and time are to be wasted in the classrooms.

Being a school board member, what you read here is true. We must get up with the rest of the nation when it comes to education. These are our leaders of tomorrow. Why can't Utah institute a one cent sales tax raise to help with our funding needs. It is especially tough to run a school district in rural areas when the money just isn't there. With increases in fuel, our transportation budgets are out of control. Give our kids credit, they are phenominal students. Imagine what could happen with the proper funding. These students deserve this as do teachers. We, as a state need to wake up and get with the program.

Since when does education spending equal success? Do we want to be like DC with the highest spending and the worst educational system? Absolutely not. It's not how much money we spend that matters -- it's how we spending it! Unfortunately, we don't spend it well. Mr Peterson should know that our students are not performing well academically. We have too many parents, teachers, and administrators who feel like school is taxpayer-paid daycare. We have too many school boards and districts that are more interested in entertainment and socialization than academics.

Something truly to be proud of!

Last in teacher pay
Last in per student funding
Largest class sizes in the nation
Splits districts instead of consolidating them

Utah A pretty odd State

This will all change when we run the "last priority is education" republicans out of here, or at least the majority.
If we as constituents care about education we will get these guys out of here.

SAT scores in Utah should not be presented here as evidence. Western Universities use the ACT, and not the SAT. So only highly ambitious students who want to go to elite schools in the East and in Califoria would take the SAT, whereas in the Eastern United States, all students, ambitious and non-ambitious take the SAT. So it is by no means reflective of state academic achievement.

Congratulations to the educators in Utah for the results of their work. However, the old song and dance of money, money, money by the UEA is put to rests by the fact Utah students do so well on the ACT test. When will the legislature and the schools finally realize there is little, if any, relation to the amount spent per student and the education resulting from the dollars spent?

If the entire state budget were given to the schools, the educators would still whine for more money. If they would spend as much time on economic efficiency as they do on whining, there would be even more economical and better education in the state.

One simple idea illustrates my point. The number of school disticts in Utah could be reduced with a savings of millions of dollars per year. But, Oh no, that sacred cow can't even be visited by the greedy educators. Go whine somewhere else, I am tired listening to them.

Utah would appear much more competitive with other states if the other 49 states would cut their wasteful spending and follow the efficient Utah model. The notion that we should spend another $500 million just to catch Idaho so that we're not on the bottom of some meaningless list is absurd.

so we spend $5,437 per student in the state. Thats a good chunck of change. Now, if you go to the Utah Department of Corrections website they say that they spend about $25,000 per inmate per year.

OVER 4 TIMES THE AMOUNT!!!

I guess that we find it more important to spend money on those people who bring down society then to try and spend money on students in hopes that they may lift up society.

I'm glad that Utah has it's priorities strait.

The headline could have read, Utah first in spending eficiency.

That may be true, and I do feel bad about it, not to mention a sense of responsibility to do something about it. But the plain and simple fact is that I'm completely tapped out. I simply cannot afford to send anyone any more money either in the form of donations or increased taxes of any kind, so please don't ask me (or force me) to pay any more.

Defending Utah's low investment in students by citing Advanced Placement and SAT scores doesn't really cover the subject, does it? Those would only be students in the most ambitious college-bound segment. How does the total population of students stack up against students in other states?

As long as we continue to do more with less--have higher test scores and graduation rates than other states--we'll continually get less money, and less respect for having asked for more money. But the time will come when the system begins to collapse on itself (that may have started already, with the severe teacher shortage), and by then it will be too late to fix.

How much does the Deseret News censor these comments? Only a fraction of those written seem to be posted.

I would love to see a class in Utah that only has 23 kids. The only ones I know of at the secondary level are special ed classes. Many science and math classes have 35 or more. And we wonder why our math and science scores aren't as high as we think they should be.

It is a miracle anyone will teach in this state. Lack of respect from some parents and students. Low pay. etc.

As soon as we get starting salaries up to $40,000 things will improve.