The Utah Education System
Charlie Allen
School Demographics:
- Total public school student population: 663,852
- Total state public education budget: $5.7 billion
- Number of charter schools and percentage of students served (if applicable): 130 (of 1,121), ~12% of student enrollment
- Source: Utah State Board of Education website
(Above graph from Utah State Report Card)
(Above graph made with data from USBE and Hanson)
(Above graph made with data from USBE)
School Testing/Curriculum
- Accountability measures (testing, portfolios, growth, etc.)
- PEEP (Pre-Kindergarten Entry & Exit Profile)
- RISE (Readiness Improvement Success Empowerment) Testing
- Utah Aspire Plus (Utah Core testing + ACT Aspire)
- WIDA (ESSA Title III) (for ELL students)
- Utah School Report Cards (per school, district, etc)
- Subject matter assessed: ELA, Math, Science, Writing
- Testing or proficiency graduation requirements:
- Utah Aspire Plus (grades 9-10)
- RISE (grades 3-8)
- Source: Utah State Board of Education website
Teachers:
- Average teacher salary: $57,226
- Presence of teachers unions/collective bargaining (e.g., AFT/NEA): Utah Education Association (largest), AFT, AAE (UEA website)
- Merit pay for teachers: additional salary or certification opportunities
- TSSP (Teacher Salary Supplement Program)
- NBPTS Certification program
- ETHPS (Effective Teachers in High Poverty Schools) program
Data Analysis:
Based on the above data, it seems that a central aspect of the inequalities in Utah’s public education system lies in the funding of their public schools. Utah has very low spending per pupil, ranking close to last in the country every year. In fact, Utah had been the lowest spender in the United States for twenty years before edging out Idaho for second to last place in 2o21 by just $29 per pupil (Sanders). Coupled with this low funding, school districts in Utah vary widely in funding per pupil. The disparity between the highest spending district, coincidentally named Rich County, and the lowest, Provo, is nearly 24.5 thousand dollars per student. Rich school district also exceeds the state average spending by almost 22.5 thousand dollars per student. These differences undoubtedly impact inequalities within the state’s education system, as students from schools spending that much more money on their education surely have opportunities and privileges unavailable to students in lower spending districts. Also, the districts spending more per student also probably have better chances to retain quality educators and administrators as part of the higher cost of education, which would greatly impact the students of those institutions.
Another inequality within the education system is the great disparity within graduation rates of different demographics. Caucasian students, who make up just under three quarters of the total student population of Utah schools, graduate at a rate of over ninety percent. Hispanic students, on the other hand, make up almost a fifth of students in the population, but graduate at a rate ten percent lower than that of white students, at eighty percent. Even further, students that are economically disadvantaged or English Language Learners graduate at a rate of seventy eight percent and seventy three percent, respectively, compared to the overall graduation rate of eighty eight percent for all Utah students.
One way in which the state seems to be combating these inequalities is awarding teachers who perform well within schools with a large student population living in poverty. The program, called ETHPS (Effective Teachers in High Poverty Schools), directs additional salary and benefits to teachers with proven results in these schools, so as to incentivize these teachers to continue to teach and not remove quality human resources from already-suffering schools. These teachers are selected based on student performance, with different classroom benchmarks for different grade levels. While this program is an important step forward, there will still be issues of inequality between school districts, as wealthier districts could offer salaries and school environments better than those of high poverty districts even after the state government’s additional funds. This program also does not affect the flow of teachers into high poverty schools, but merely attempts to incentivize quality teachers to stay. This means that the entire program is dependent on quality teachers already being present in these schools, and therefore may have a lesser effect than a program designed to assist newer teachers and develop them into quality educators.
Current Education Trend
One recent trend within Utah was HB331, a $36 million bill aimed to install a voucher system in the state. Proposed by House Representative Candace Pierucci, the bill’s supporters claimed that the proposal would broaden available school choices for children and families throughout the state by directing state funding assigned to each family into whatever program or school they send their children to, regardless of its status as a public or private institution. In Utah, each public school receives a ‘weighted pupil unit’ (WPU) for each enrolled student, currently valued at $3,900. Under the proposed bill, these WPUs would be able to be used by parents as a scholarship towards paying for private school. However, families who make less money annually would receive more money in WPUs, increasing to $7,800 per child in scholarship money.
This worries critics of the bill, including representatives of the Utah Education Association, as the state already spends very little on public education. They fear that the money leaving the state’s public schools would cripple the school system, as well as not adequately addressing the cost of schooling within the state. The highest scholarship amounts within the bill would still not receive enough money to cover the average tuition of Utah’s private schools. These critics argue that the money should stay in schools, and an effort ought to be made to fix the state’s public schools instead of promoting school choice and the siphoning of funds away from those schools and districts.
Ultimately, the bill was not passed by the House of Representatives in Utah’s state legislature. HB331 was contested from the beginning, only barely winning a vote of six to five within a House committee before being defeated by a margin of twenty two to fifty three. The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, also had publicly declared that he would veto the bill if it had passed in the House.
Sources: Both Tanner articles from the SLT
Sources Cited:
“Educator Incentive Programs.” Utah State Board of Education, https://www.schools.utah.gov/licensing/program/educatorincentiveprograms.
“Fingertip Facts.” Utah State Board of Education, 2021, https://www.schools.utah.gov/fingertipfacts.
Hanson, Melanie. “U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics [2022]: Per Pupil + Total.” Education Data Initiative, 21 Mar. 2022, https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics.
“High School Graduation Requirements.” Utah State Board of Education, 2021, https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/graduationrequirements?mid=1014&tid=2.
Sanders, Connor. “Utah Is Not Last in the Nation for per-Pupil Spending, for the First Time in Decades.” The Salt Lake Tribune, The Salt Lake Tribune, 18 May 2021, https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2021/05/18/utah-is-not-last-nation/.
“Student Proficiency Results.” USBE Data Gateway, 2021, https://datagateway.schools.utah.gov/Assessment/StudentProficiency/2021.
“Superintendent’s Annual Report.” Utah State Board of Education, 2021, https://www.schools.utah.gov/superintendentannualreport.
Tanner, Courtney. “$36 Million School Voucher Bill Fails in Utah House.” The Salt Lake Tribune, The Salt Lake Tribune, 1 Mar. 2022, https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2022/02/28/million-school-voucher/.
Tanner, Courtney. “School Voucher Bill Wins Narrow Approval from Utah Lawmakers.” The Salt Lake Tribune, The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Feb. 2022, https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2022/02/16/utah-voucher-bill-would/.
Utah Education Association, 14 Apr. 2022, https://myuea.org/.
“Utah School Report Card.” Utah State Board of Education, 2021, https://utahschoolgrades.schools.utah.gov/.
Utah State Board of Education, 2021, https://www.schools.utah.gov/.