Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: School budget cut ideas come fast and furious’

The most difficult job in education is the building administrator. With more and more student coming in with problems, the administrator becomes more important.
Besides, they have to listen to all the concerns and complaints from parents like Ruzicka.

This story confirms it: Ruzicka IS the puppet master.

D News, pretty one sided article, again. Why do you give Gayle Ruzicka as much space as public officials? She is NOT an elected official, and clearly has her own agenda. Were the interviews for the article done at an Eagle Forum convention? People might actually read the article as news, rather than feature, if it had some balance. Interviewing one of the majority of parents who do not support eliminating the 12th grade would have been a good start. So much for presenting both sides...

I remember a girl in my class (1993) graduating a year early. She opted to take classes instead of Seminary, so she easily had what was needed to get out of school early. The choice is already there. Funny how people don't realize that. Just take Seminary from home, before school or after and get your priorities lined up and you can already do what they are talking about.

Gayle probably lives at the end of the bus route. Saying what she said about the bus being empty shows that she is pretty daft how things work. Sadly, she has time to let her opinions be known as if they are opinions with actual thought or cleverness behind them. Thankfully, she does not hold public office.

Here's an idea that most schools around the country already do. Stop providing school supplies for every elementary school student. Most places have a school supply list and must provide their own pencils, scissors, crayons, rulers, etc. Some lists even require each student bring one ream of copy paper. Think of how much money this would save the schools.

I am a long-time educator, parent & now grandparent. I think giving students the opportunity to skip their senior year could be a good idea, given the right guidelines - high achievement test scores and decent grades, along with plans for continuing education (college, apprenticeship,trade school, etc). Year-round school, where teachers could volunteer to teach year-round with a commensurate raise in pay,could save money in benefits (if one teacher teaches 25% more students, then four such teachers would save the cost of benefits for the additional teacher that would otherwise be necessary). Some of the savings would be eaten up by air-conditioning costs, though. Some creative scheduling - putting teen students in larger groups for lectures and testing, and in smaller groups for discussion and activities - might allow the overall student-teacher ratio to rise without damaging interactions between teachers & students.

In Utah, school supplies are a constitutional right under a free education. If a student is forced to purchase supplies, the education isn't free.

I recently read that the State of Education had over 300 employees. I know we don't need that many administrative people there. How about each district? Pay teachers extra money and take away a couple of there classes so they can do the district jobs. I bet they would do better and know more than someone who has been out of the classroom for several years.

I homeschool and can pay for my own supplies for my kids with giving them a good education, however, I think that we should still support the public education because some people aren't very adept at such a tremendous responsibility. It is important to support something that people leave their children to be raised with that we should be mindful of the importance of a good education and that includes being able to have supplies for the kids.

Boy, it's hard to understand why the subject of increasing state revenue to address the budget shortfall is more radical than many of these ideas. It doesn't seem to be a responsible approach to eliminate half of your options to balance the budget before you even understand the scope of the problem (which is what many legislators - and the Governor - did with their "no tax" pledge).

Everyone agrees that education reform to make Utah students competitive in the global economy is needed. So why can't the Legislature come up with a real, long-term plan to do that? We have 10 year plans for transportation, a whole state agency (GOED) that thinks about economic development for the long-term. Why not education?

Time for a head tax on school aged children.

Hey, if some random person says she sees the bus empty, that's good enough proof for me. Let's end busing! And if her daughter didn't attend 12th grade, hey, that's even more proof that we should axe 12th grade. So glad the Eagle Forum can educate us with such reliable case studies.

Ironically, the end of busing would shut down some of the tony east side schools like Wasatch and Churchill Jr. Highs, who, because of the lack of young families in their wealthy neighborhoods, bus folks from all over the valley in order to sustain their numbers.

Who wins in all these petty battles on the hill? The rich. Who loses? The middle class and the poor. As always.

Make all the high school football teams play their games in daylight. Running those huge lights is expensive - that alone would save several million in electricity, statewide. Add another $1 per ticket in school funding tax for those games, and basketball games too, and you're pretty close to preventing cuts to actual education.

Every high school student owns a car, right? Let's take away transportation to school for kids who live over two miles from high school. Great idea! Let's make sure those kids don't get to go to school so they can just drop out and become a burden on society.

If we don't have world-class education now, we can forget about world-class jobs in the future. I guess okay is good enough and mediocre is fine for the conservatives. How about we end exemptions for more than three children? Why is it that the biggest families have the smallest tax burden?

To Utah 1 - I thought we did have an office responsible for long term plans for public education, its called the Utah State Office of Education, but with 317 employees it is hard to tell what any of them actually do.

This is what happens when you have legislators who aren't well-educated themselves making decisions about education. Here's an idea: Hughes, Buttars, and Stephenson should spend their time getting a world-class university degree themselves instead of dictating how Utah should manage its public education.

In the class rooms is not the place to cut spending, it's everything above the class room that has all the excessive overhead and waste. When teachers are out there spending their own money for class room supplies and teaching aids means the money is disappearing before it gets to the schools. Also the parents are forced to provide class room supplies for their childrens free public education. There is nothing free about it. Parents or students themselves spend thousands a year in vending machines for school administration parties and outings from the profits.

All the legislators have to do is follow the money as it trickles down the drain pipe. Funding for K1-K12 should start at the bottom and let the remainder trickle up hill. The most costly drain on education funds is the colleges, universities, and diverting education taxes (funds) to private development and commercial use.

As much pressure being put on children to get an education, it seems asinine to come up with eliminating a complete year of eduction to save money. The money is there, it is just being misappropriated and diverted from education.

Requiring our politicians to actually have a college degree would eliminate quite a few of them from being what they are. Herbert doesn't have a college degree either. It really is the blind leading the blind, but we actually have enough people who vote for them.

The place they should cut the education expense is for the inmates.

As of now children are not our future cons our are future.

Besides the money we are already paying for the prison in taxes, we are also paying a second time in taxes for education. Lets focus not on those who have screwed up their life already and give a better chance to the children of this state.

Believe me when I say I don't have the real answers. I do have a thought, however. Sen. Buttars wants no senior year. I understand what he might be thinking but it is still way out there. Instead of that, why don't we make high school -- high school. In high school students are now encouraged to forgo high school and take college classes. Why not eliminate the college classes from high school? I believe if we took away free college from the high school, we could save much more than $60 million.