Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: Public education budget bill comes down to last day’

Utah school teachers should be applauded for doing a great job of educating children with less money than any state in the Union and for continuing to do it with even less money next year. It will be tough for most districts to balance budgets and most teachers in the state will have larger classes next year and less money to purchase supplies. We have great teachers that will do great things regardless of resources. I think everyone understands that the economy is hurting and those who have jobs are grateful to be working. I am glad it is not as bad as it could have been but we should all work to find ways to improve the situation in the future. It is the future of our children that is at stake.

"The tests are more comprehensive, more modern, simpler and less intrusive on instruction time," Stephenson said. "It's what our students deserve, it's what our teachers deserve. It gives accuracy to the assessment and immediacy to the results. It's an assessment dream."

He forgot to mention, it also gives him a whopping payback from his friends.

How is a test that comes up bi-weekly less obtrusive than a test at the end of the year that lasts four days?

The whole concept of adaptive testing is DEEPLY flawed. You can't compare anything. Feedback is sketchy since no child took the same test. Did the teacher cover the topic well enough? How does the school look compared to another school? You can't tell!

This is absolutely NOT a "great day for education." Yes, we avoided dropping the WPU, which would have been a serious problem, but avoidance of problems does not equate to huge success.

A great day for education in Utah will come when we get out of 50th place in per-pupil spending, which at the rate we're going, will come immediately after the day pigs fly.

'With Utah dead last in per pupil spending, how long can we continue to allow Charter Schools to continue. The current bill that would eventually put all costs for Charter Schools on the backs of public education is horrible given the current state of finances. Come on people have a little common sense...

Harv, more than 42,000 students have chosen to transfer to a public charter school.
The district they left gets to keep all the property tax, where the student is no longer.

Districts get a bonus for NOT meeting the needs of that student.

How is this a bad deal for the district?