Tag: public education

‘It’s a lot like The Hunger Games’: Utah education groups react to push to spend income tax money on things beyond public schools

This article originally appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune. Read it in its entirety here. Brad Asay said he was “flabbergasted” and “perplexed” to learn Tuesday that the Utah Senate had voted the night before to allow spending some of the state’s income tax, earmarked exclusively for public education, on services for the poor, the disabled and

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June 2017 Interim Session – Education Update

Education Interim Committee Meeting – June 21, 2017 Recodification The meeting began with a proposal to recodify Title 53A, which governs the state’s public school system. It will be divided into three new titles. 53E guides state administration. 53F contains funding policy. 53G guides local school administration. This was primarily for organizational purposes. After representatives

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What’s the Deal with Betsy DeVos?

Betsy DeVos is coming to town! She will be in Salt Lake City tomorrow, Tuesday, May 9 at 2:30 PM giving a speech at the ASU + GSV Summit. If you do not know who Betsy DeVos is, here is a quick primer: Ms. DeVos is currently the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, having

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Billions gone in Utah education spending since 90s

A report by the Utah Citizens’ Counsel shows a cumulative loss of billions in public education spending in Utah due to tax cuts and funding shifts.* If you were to assemble a group of the most brilliant, forward-thinking, data-driven Utahns, that group would look a lot like the Utah Citizens’ Counsel. Composed of some of the state’s senior

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The week in letters: AG Sean Reyes doesn’t get it

Homework hassles (and a teacher’s reply), AG Reyes’s mean-spiritedness and legalizing drugs in this week’s letters to the editor across the well managed state of Utah. Enough with the homework already I go to public high school, and I have had enough with all of the homework the teachers are giving out. They forget that

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Standardized testing stunts classroom innovation

Paul Rolly’s recent column about a teacher who was placed on administrative leave for openly questioning standardized testing points to an authoritarian administrative approach that has no place in public education. Ann Florence, an honors English teacher, was placed on administrative leave after vocally criticizing the Granite School District’s computer-adapted standardized tests, calling them a

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Speaker Lockhart Hijacks Utah Public Education

Speaker Lockhart has officially hijacked Utah’s public education in what is being played out like a daytime hit soap opera. There’s been audience, drama, betrayal and suspense. Audience. All of Utah has watched this masquerade unfold. Drama. With Utah ranked last in the nation in per-pupil spending and second highest in the nation in teacher-student

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Fact Checking HB131, the Public Education Modernization Act

In recent interviews and committee hearings, House Speaker Becky Lockhart and HB131’s sponsor, Rep. Francis Gibson, have declared their massive education-technology expansion plan the future of Utah education. According to the two, it’s the one-size-fits-all solution. Since education-technology expansion is not a new concept–it’s been around for over a decade–I decided to do some fact

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A bailout for public education

The Better UTAH Beat airs Tuesday afternoons on KVNU’s For the People. Podcasts of previous episodes are available here. —– Here in Utah, the way we pay for public education is backwards. Right now, the more your family takes advantage of public education, the less your family has to pay for it. That’s because the

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