The Standard-Examiner Editorial Board had the opportunity to meet with Utah Education Association President Kim Campbell. Utah's public schools are not immune from the effects of the recession. Along with many other taxpayer-funded programs, public education will see a shortfall in money. Campbell says that 11,000 expected new students will not be covered in Utah's planned budget.
We asked Campbell if she feels confident that public schools have done everything they can do to trim expenses. She replied that Utah schools have been increasing class sizes to deal with the fewer public dollars. Campbell also said that the UEA supports changes in Utah tax policy that would increase the per-pupil funding in Utah. According to a study from Utahns for Public Schools, Utah spends about $3,700 less per pupil on average than the rest of the nation. The UEA has started a Web site, www.Utahsfuture.org, that highlights some of the union's public schools policy initiatives.
If it is economically feasible, we'd like to see more money spent on Utah's schoolchildren. In these economic times though, that is not feasible right now. We urge legislators to keep a close eye on the budget and make sure that education is not cut at the expense of an initiative that we don't need. Unfortunately, we do have some in our Legislature who equate fiscal responsibility with eliminating grades and other dumb ideas.
However, we would like to see the UEA get behind some teacher accountability measures. The union has for a long time resisted efforts to link compensation to teaching excellence. It's a clear and sensible request: better teachers receive higher pay. The only answer we could receive on this issue from Campbell is that the teacher base salary must be increased before pay for performance is discussed.
But that's a diversion. The truth is teachers in Utah earn a good wage in comparison to other workers in Utah. They have also seen salary increases over the past few years. Teachers in Utah enjoy a defined benefit retirement plan and have excellent benefits, including health care insurance coverage. How many private sector employers and employees have enjoyed these consistent perks? Very few; in fact many have seen pay cuts.
Frankly, an increase for teacher salaries is very low on our priority list, given the tough economic times we have. And until we have a compensation system for public educators that focuses on performance, rather than longevity, we don't see that stance changing.
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