With all that space on the page you would think there would be at least a hint of a solution. What changes would you offer Mr. Florez? Utah was offered vouchers and they turned it down. The current structural change is to break up school districts and you would think the world was at an end in Jordan. It's very easy to armchair quarterback, now how about getting in the game and giving some idea of what structural changes you had in mind.

What a pathetic column. You can criticize the legislature, but bring a solution or two with you. You want "structural change", but you don't propose how to do it. It's always a waste of time to read this column, but I do it hoping someday that Florez will stop generalizing, and offer some kind of solution.

Florez criticizes but never offers solutions or answers in anything but the vaguest generalities. I can't imagine why he is given space as a columnist with the Deseret News.

Another example of throwing a stale twinkie in the corner of a room and legislators being entertained by watching teachers claw each other for a couple of crumbs.

I agree with the previous comments. Florez's columns are largely a waste of time. He makes observations without backing them up with data, and he never presents any solutions.

Every week, it's just one complaint after another.

People like this should write for the Tribune.

Just another grumpy old man. Florez' generation left us with these problems in education. Now my generation has to fix it.

Pay for performance should have been happening decades ago. At least it has finally started at the grassroots with incentives from the legislature.

I'm looking forward to the follow up article where Mr. Florez offers detailed and concrete plan on structural changes.

Here are mine structural change suggestions:

1. Cut the power of the educrat establishment.
2. Cut social engineering and place reading, writing and arithmetic back in the education drivers seat. Adopting singapore math standards would be a good start.
3. Return to the neighborhood school concept. by changing district size. A district is ONE high school and feeder schools. This will force parents to become more responsible.
4. Reinvent the PTA. It has become a state and national political institution instead of a neighborhood parent organization.
5. Increase funding to charter schools. They are the bright spot in Utah education today. Reward them for a job well done.

A top down management of education is what created the problem we are having with education. There are many bright spots within education within individual classrooms and very few bright spots above the classroom. The jury is still out with regard to the charter school movement, with some questions that need to be answered such as equal access and due process for students.

Yes, we need workable solutions to our education problems. Such solutions do not entail increased administrative layers of dozens of new districts each with their own 'red tape' and ideas of how education should work for 'their' students. It does not include performance pay for selected educators which will be manipulated so those with the most attractive 'packet' or those most popular or those with the 'best' test scores get the crumbs available when we finally ge to the point of paying the teachers.

We need better pay for all teachers so we can attract and retain high quality educators to the profession. We need to reinforce the role of parents by increased eamphasis on the PTA and allow that group a more influential role in shaping educational philosophy. We need to emphasize the essential nature of preparing children for school by parents - spend time with your kids teaching them accountability, respect and a work ethic and read to them. Require that all students who enroll in school have at least basic skills in English before they are allowed to attend. Include a program where we educate the whole child. School is more than just reading and math.

I've been homeschooling most of my kids lives, but am looking to transition my oldest into a small charter high school where his needs will be better met than in the huge local high school.

In my neighborhood, at least half of my friends kids are in something other than the neighborhood schools - which are actually considered good schools. But they are overburdened with regulations, the teachers are overworked, and they have no flexibility in any area. Those parents I know with kids in charter schools are much happier - the curriculum is both more rigorous and interesting, more tailored to individual needs, and their kids get more individual attention.

The public's love of charter schools and criticism of public schools and public school teachers is one source of the problem.

Really? Charters wouldn't exist without demand for them. Demand wouldn't exist if public schools were meeting expectations. Kids don't come with standardized brains and abilities - but public schools try to cram all those individuals into the same darn round holes regardless, because they don't have time/money/flexibility to do anything else. Charters are free of some of the regulation - and provide a more flexible approach on less money.

Mr Florez' suggestion, in a past column, that teachers and parents band together to form charter schools, presumably small ones, is a very good idea. Teachers need to be able to manage their own situations, and I would add my own view that schools need to be smaller so kids are not lost in the present school maze.

Please keep sending your kids to the charter schools.

My local school improved by leaps and bounds when all the "charter parents" left and took their kids with them.

Teachers could actually teach instead of having to listen to the parents make excuses for their kids.

Please build more of them and keep weeding out the classrooms.

All this shows me is that the legislature has $20,000,000 that they could be putting towards teacher salaries but they held it back.

Teachers don't need one more hoop to jump through.

No wonder my kids have had first year teachers for the last few years.

All the veterans have retired or jumped to the private sector.

This combines well with the article in the daily herald yesterday that show the number of failing grades is increasing dramatically.

Guess what? Until our legislature pulls their heads out of the sand, it is only going to get worse.

The most important line of the oolumn was this one:

And it's not just about pay; it requires giving teachers the trust, freedom and dignity of being treated as professionals.

Why can't the leadership of the legislature treat public school teachers with more repsect and dignity. This includes the paycheck but even more in the professional freedom area. It is more about control than trying to improve the system. Exhibit A is the debacle last session over the IB program.

I agree with the comment about charters still being an unproven commodity. The idea of rewarding charters for a "job well done", according to what metric? Their results are comparable to the public schools.

Until the Legislature gets serious about paying professional salaries to entice real professionals into the schools, they will get what they pay for.

Many of these comments criticize Mr Florez for complaining without offering solutions, and then proceed to do the same thing - blablabla, whinewhinewhine.

In my experience, the most important factor in educational success is the parent(s). Rather than reinvent the wheel and concoct legislative mandates for more parental involvement, parents just need to stop complaining and GET INVOLVED!!

There are ALREADY numerous ways for parents to get more involved. How many of you have been an officer for your local PTA? How many of you have volunteered in a classroom? How many of you have served on a Community Council? That one's fun, because there is actually some money to spend and therefore some clout to wield.

Rather than split the district and create more overhead, just step it up and get involved. Don't like the curriculum? Talk to the school board. I've been involved the last 6 years on a Community Council, and my wife's been doing PTA for almost twice that, and we LOVE our public schools! We know their teachers and administrators on a first-name basis. We got involved, made a difference, and our kids are succeeding.

PS: pay teachers more - they deserve it!

The districts already push the "life-long-learner" stuff too much. The trouble with that philosophy is that it usually ends up with the kids NOT learning what they ought to, while supposedly learning to be "life-long-learners". That dumbs-down their education.

It wouldn't matter what the legislature did or didn't do, John would criticize them. They are trying to do what they can. I disagree with them often, like with vouchers, which won't accomplish what they think it would, but they are working hard at it. Sometimes too hard.

Dividing up the huge regional districts that we have, into community districts is a HUGE change. IF the public cares enough to be involved, this will give them the freedom to do what their community wants done, including building enough schools, small enough, so that improvement can be made. This could be a major positive change, but it takes time.

The continual barrage of criticism pushes legislators and educators to chase the fads trying to please. That just makes us more fragmented.

Are you aware that math education has deteriorated quite a bit since we were young?

Educators it seems don't have a clue anymore.

If you want to improve education, here would be a good place to start.

You want solutions?

Pay teachers more, raise standards for teachers at the same time.

Math education is a mess in Utah. We have these people with math education degrees who have severely dumbed down math education.

We need to raise teacher pay so we can attract some real professionals who have a clue. People who have a choice to get a real math degree and work for industry, or who can become a chemist or a physisicst or an engineer.

We definately need to raise standards and pay teachers more.

Are some of us saying that we need to pay teachers more because the teachers we have now are poor teachers?

Does salary indicate how good a teacher is?

Are we saying teachers are holding back, and not giving it their all because they don't like their salaries?

Are we saying the administrators of a district like Alpine School District are more professional and competent than their teachers because they are paid 6 figures and the most their teachers only make 5 figures?

Why should I do that when I can just write out a check directly to the UEA?