Mayor Love's Current Department of Education Plan Doesn't Add Up

Mia Love's current education plan includes bringing the Department of Education's salaries in line with Utah teacher's salaries.  It said so on a TV ad I saw tonight.  It says so on her web site.  She even said so to the Salt Lake Tribune, as captured in this video:



It sounds nice, doesn't it?  However, the reality is going to be difficult.  First, let's look at how much an employee at DoEd makes.  According to Politifact, the average DoEd salary is somewhere in the neighborhood of $103,000.  How does that compare to the average Utah Teacher Salary?  According to the Daily Herald, the average Utah Teacher salary comes in at just under $50,000.

However, a dollar in Utah gets you further than a dollar in Washing DC, where those DoEd workers live.  According to this Cost of Living Calculator for CNN Money, Someone making $50,000 in Salt Lake City Would have to make $73,578 to have the same level of living in Washington DC.

And, I won't even touch worrying about education requirements or anything else at this point.  Nor will I talk about the logistics of cutting someone's salary by half or even a quarter.

However, if Mayor Love wants to look at some expensive salaries, one need look no further than right here in Utah  (all of these salaries include benefits):

The Assistant City Manager in Saratoga Springs makes $118,000.  He is the 6th-highest paid person on Saratoga Spring's payroll. (source)

The State Superintendent for public schools is costing the state of Utah $250,000 (or over 2 DoEd employees or 5 Utah teachers) (source)

UTA's Rail Service General manager is costing us $511,000 (or 5 DoEd employees or 10 Utah Teachers). (source)

And, let's remember that, should she win next week, Mayor Love's salary will be $174,000.  Significantly higher than that of a typical DoEd staffer.  And over 3 times the salary of a Utah teacher.

Maybe we should bring Congressional salaries in line with Utah teacher's salaries.

A Former Unicorn on Uintah's Unpaid Lunches

Did you know that elementary schools have mascots?  I don't know why, but they do.  Usually, they either have some alliterative name (i.e. the Crestview Cougar) or are something mystical (I have no idea if West Kearns' Royal Lion is more mystical than a regular lion, but it's going here).  Students of Salt Lake City's Uintah Elementary, located at the corner of 1500 East and 1300 South, are known as the Unicorns.

How do I know this?  Well, from Kindergarten through the sixth grade, I was a Unicorn.  I have fond memories of my time at Uintah.   As soon as I read the article from the Tribune about kids having their lunches stolen from them, it transported me back to second grade, when my Garfield lunch box was stolen.  As I read the account of kids having their lunch taken, I pictured it happening.

Well, in my mind, it happened in the Uintah Elementary Cafeteria of my day, located somewhere near where Uintah's southern soccer goal is now.  I've never been in the "new" school they bult 2 decades ago, but I imagine the cafeteria being the same.

The story wasn't about a bully stealing some kid's lunch, it was about a bully stealing 40 kids' lunches.

In case you or or kids haven't been in a school for a few years, I'll tell you how the system works:  You put money into an account for your kid, the kid gets a PIN number, and at some point when he's getting school lunch, he enters the PIN number on a pad like you do when you use your debit card.  This system is great, because none of the kids knows who is paying full price and who gets reduced or free lunch.

I remember making fun of the kids in Jr High that had the red or blue lunch tickets because their families were poor.  I feel bad about that.  It's nice to know that kids today don't have that stigma reigning over their heads.

Unless, of course, they run out of money in their accounts.  Then, if it's a system like they have at Uintah where kids pick up their lunch and then enter their number, if you are out of funds, they take the lunch and throw it in the trash.

The school district claims that they give notice to families that the funds are low or empty.  I know that in some cases, those notices don't get to the parents.  Sending messages home with kids isn't exactly Western Union.

However, if you have 40 kids (nearly one-and-a-half classes worth) that have accounts below $0, maybe you should look at how the communication is sent to the parents.

For instance, whenever there was something my parents really needed to see, they had to sign it.  This let the school know that the message got there.

Also, if a school has a higher-than-average rate of students running out of money, maybe you should have the payment pad at the front of the line.  It's much less traumatizing.

The last thing you should be doing is taking food directly out of kids' hands.  Ya big bullies.

Special Interests, or Why Philpot = Vouchers

Much has been made about how much of Jim Matheson's campaign funding has come from PACs.

However, Morgan Philpot's campaign has gotten help from PACs. But, they did it in a way that is nearly impossible to track just how much PAC help they are getting.

First, there was the ad run by "B Alice Baker" who usually goes by Barbra Baker. She spent $50,000 of her own money to run the radio ads.

She says that "Both parties have been at fault with ignoring how to maintain freedom, and getting bigger and taxing more and spending more." However, the only talking point she has in her ad is that Jim Matheson votes with the Democratic Leadership 90% of the time. In other words, according to her radio ad, she's voting for Morgan Philpot because he's a Republican.

Which kinda makes her statement to KSL seem fishy.

So, who is Barbra Alice Baker? She's the owner of Challenger Schools, and was a big proponent of vouchers. Remember vouchers? That initiative that Utah voters defeated by more than a 3 to 2 margin. In fact, it was defeated in every single county.

However, the biggest special interest running Philpot's campaign for him is FreedomWorks. FreedomWorks is a big backer of....

Vouchers.

Another big proponent of vouchers is FreedomWorks. FreedomWorks is behind those often illegally-placed Matheson=Pelosi signs you see around town, and most of the Philpot signs you see as well.

What is Morgan Philpot's position on vouchers? Well, the guy who invented the Utah Republicans' Web Communications Committee can't seem to give any communication on his web site about his view on education. Which can only lead us to assume one thing:

Philpot = Vouchers.

-Bob

VIDEO: Peter Corroon on Education

Read Peter Corroon's plan for Education.

Or, you can read Herbert's "Plan."

The choice is clear who has a better plan. Corroon tells you what he'll do. Herbert says he'll do something.

My vote goes to Peter Corroon.

Buttars Defends K-11 Plan on CNN

If a student has the credits to leave high school early, they are allowed to already.

Another Brilliant Move From Buttars

Because this sends a great message to businesses looking to relocate here -- Come to Utah, where our kids have one less year of school than yours do!

SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah senator thinks the way Utah looks at its budget needs to be "rethought." Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, began outlining his plan to reform state spending from the ground up Thursday. Among his proposals is one to eliminate the 12th grade, a move he says would cut $250 million out of the budget every year.

"Almost all of the industrial world uses 11 grades," he said. "Why do we use 12? The kids either got their one foot in AP classes in college, or they're just running around, taking PE."

Buttars hosted what he called a government reform summit at the State Capitol. In attendance Thursday afternoon were several Republican senators and representatives, as well as some conservative leaders like Gayle Ruzicka of the Utah Eagle Forum.

Buttars believes his ideas "have legs."

Yep. That will fly.

And, I take offense. I didn't take one AP nor one PE class my Senior Year.

Peter Corroon Throws First Jab

While he isn't the most engaging man while behind a microphone, Peter Corroon does have an entertaining way of saying things.

Take, for instance, this jab in the Deseret News:

"Our state leaders have talked about education as their No. 1 priority for decades and Utah is falling in national standards," Corroon said. "They've cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of our education system. If that's priority No. 1, I'd hate to see priorities 2 and 3."

-Bob

Utah Republicans are to blame for your property tax increase

Remember those Utah RepublICAN billboards last year?

Especially the one that said "I Can pay fewer taxes?"

Yeah, about that:

Taxes will be the topic Tuesday night at a "truth in taxation" hearing in Riverton. Many are expected to voice concerns about a new law requiring taxpayers throughout Salt Lake County to pay $10 million for the split of the Jordan School District.

Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Utah Legislature first passed the law allowing the split, then passed the law that puts the cost of the split on the shoulders of taxpayers all over the county. In Salt Lake City, for instance, that hike will cost $57 for every $100,000 in home value.

Many taxpayers who don't live in the Jordan District are expressing surprise this week as they're opening up their tax notices and find their school taxes are up.

"We're the ones who stood up on the Senate floor, who stood up on the House floor, and said, 'This will raise your taxes,'" said Senate Minority Leader Pat Jones.

KSL 5 News looked at the vote on the school funding equalization bill in 2008 and found a nearly party-line divide: 68 Republican lawmakers, all but a few, voted 'yes;' nearly all Democrats voted 'no.'

Darn that liberal (Church-owned) media!

-Bob

Nebo School District Bond Election Tomorrow

June is an awful time to hold an election. So, if you want the voters to "give" their ok on something,do it when the smallest number of people will show.

Holly on the Hill has more:

There’s a saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant and right now, the Nebo School District needs some disinfectant. With almost no notice, on an off-time, the Nebo district is holding a bond election which will raise taxes an average of $300 per household. In a down economy and trying to sneak it in under the radar is under-handed and just plain wrong. To compound the problem, there are only 7 polling places instead of 30+ and half of those are in different locations.

Royce van Tassel of the Utah Taxpayer’s Association says the June election is an underhanded way of trying to pass a bond without the residents’ participation. If Nebo School District was confident in the measure, they should have waited until November, when voter turnout is sure to be higher. “It seems all too clear”, he said, “that the Nebo School District doesn’t want the taxpayers to weigh in on this.”

Nebo district is the southern half of Utah County.

-Bob

Congratulations to Mr Withers -- Superintendent of the Year

Mr Withers was my principal at Olympus High School. He was a great guy. I had several memorable moments in his office.....

Des News:

Salt Lake School District Superintendent McKell Withers is Utah's 2009 Superintendent of the Year.

The award was announced early this morning during a Utah School Superintendents Association meeting in Sandy.

Withers is a "tireless advocate for children," said Alpine School District Superintendent Vernon Henshaw. He serves as president of the Association.

Withers thanked his colleagues for the honor and said public education is "the greatest institution in the world."

He joined Salt Lake District in January 2003. Before that he was the assistant superintendent for support services in Granite School District.

Prior to that, he was principal of Olympus High School and Bonneville Junior High School. He has also worked as director of student services, a school counselor and a classroom teacher. He is a graduate of Salt Lake City's South High School.

Withers will represent Utah in the upcoming National Superintendent of the Year program.

"Hell Hath No Fury Like a Pack Of Utah Legislators Scorned"

So says Paul Rolly in his column last Sunday.

One would think that Utah voters' overwhelming rejection of private school vouchers earlier this month would inject a little humility into the legislative leaders who tried so relentlessly to push the nation's first universal voucher law down the throats of their reluctant constituents.
But with the cumulative ego of the Republican-dominated Legislature reaching Godzilla-like proportions, it would take more than a thrashing at the polls to tame it. Hardly any time passed between the defeat of the voucher law and suggestions from lawmakers that tax credits be given to businesses which contribute to private school scholarships. That less-direct use of the public till to fund private schools would be just as unpalatable as the rejected law, but never mind.
There is more. The pro-voucher lawmakers have talked up the idea that the State School Board should be expanded from 15 to 29 members, resulting in one school board district for each Utah Senate district.
Politically tone-deaf legislators like Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, and Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, also have resurrected a proposal to make State School Board elections partisan. Political parties would nominate their candidates, who then would run for the board under their party labels. Going through the party convention and primary process would make school board members more accountable to their constituents, the senators claim.
Translated into English, that means they would be more accountable to the right-wing zealots who seem to control the Republican conventions, and less accountable to the more moderate people who actually comprise the majority of the Utah Republican Party.
After all, many of the convention delegates are the same folks, or at least cut from the same cloth, as the delegates to the 2000 GOP convention who booed Sen. Orrin Hatch, Gov. Mike Leavitt and former LDS Relief Society President Barbara Smith as being too liberal. Then they forced Leavitt into a primary against unknown, last-minute candidate Glen Davis. With a wider Republican electorate able to vote in the primary, Leavitt stomped the "message" candidate.

Patrick Byrne: Utahns Crazy, not Stupid

In the movie Speed, the bad guy keeps telling Keanu Reeves that he (that bad guy) is crazy, not stupid.

It's a term I have adopted. Sometimes, I use the Spainish "loco, no soy tonto."

Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne has decided that he misspoke when he said that we had failed a statewide IQ test.

What he meant to say was that Utahns had failed a sanity test. He makes that clear in an op-ed in today's Salt Lake Tribune.

He uses the bad state of Utah's public school system and the fact that out education costs will "double in the next 10 years" as evidence that Utahns were crazy (but not stupid) for voting against referendum 1 and "accepting the status quo."

I'd be willing to bet that most Utahns believe that Utah's public schools are bad at best. However, 62% of voters decided that a plan that increased taxes and put 100% of that tax increase into the private sector with minimal regulation, while giving public schools no incentive to improve (in fact, giving schools incentive to do even worse, a point Patrick Byrne conceded to me at Piper Down) made absolutely no sense.

And, let's be real. Does sinking $2.6 million of your personal fortune into a losing cause, blasting a Governor with an 80% approval rating, saying you'll help fund an opponent for said Governor even if that candidate is a "communist," and calling the residents of the state you call home (including many of your employees) either stupid, crazy, or uncaring REALLY sound like the makings of a sane man?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

-Bob

Utah Parents Rank 36th in Reading to Their Children

DeseretNews:

The Reading Across the Nation report uses information from the National Survey of Children's Health in 2003 to determine frequency of reading to young children. About 46 percent of Utah children under the age of 5 are read to every day; the national average is 47.8 percent.

Reading rates rise with income and are higher among whites than non-whites; however, the 48.2 percent of Utah whites reporting they read to children every day puts them 47th in the country for the effort. While 37.2 percent of Utah's non-white population reports reading to children daily, that group's rank is 36. The national report also states reading rates are higher among native English speakers.

Maybe we really do hate our children......

Vouchers in 2008, 2009, and beyond

Yeah, voucher supporters SAY they aren't going to raise the voucher issue in the 2008 legislative session, that this saber-rattling is looking forward to 2009.

However, these are the same people who weren't afraid to lie through their teeth just a month ago. I'll believe it when the session ends.

We'll continue keeping an eye on this.

-Bob

GOP and Vouchers

Yesterday's Tribune has an article about several GOP legislators and vouchers. It mentions that the Utah Democratic Party sent fliers to voters in several legislative districts reminding them that their legislator voted for vouchers.

Given that vouchers failed by better than 20 points in every one of those targeted districts, I think it was a smart move.

This was the first of several salvos aimed at certain Republicans. The Democrats in Utah are sick of sitting back and playing defense. We're running offensive plays now.

-Bob

Polygamists and Vouchers

A few days ago, the Salt Lake Tribune had a story about how a large majority of voters in two polygamist towns voted in favor of vouchers last week.

While I won't comment further on the results other than to say I told you so, here is some fact-checking that needs to be done.

The voucher law barred scholarships from being used at schools that encourage "illegal conduct" - a provision apparently aimed at making private schools in polygamous communities ineligible.

However, it's only if the schools encourage illegal conduct, not the groups. So, as long as they don't mention the P-word, it's OK. Furthermore, if it's so illegal, why doesn't the Atty General do anything?

Other provisions of the law would have been obstacles in the community, too, such as a requirement that teachers have bachelor's degrees and pass background checks and that the school's program be accredited.

Actually, there was no requirement that teachers have bachelor's degrees. They could be "highly qualified" although it would be up to the school to decide what that meant. Also, schools didn't have to be accredited. They just had to show prospective students' parents proof of their accreditation status.

-Bob

Rep John Dougall calls 62% of Utahns ignorant

Actually, he more or less calls all of us ignorant:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
-- Thomas Jefferson

There were many valid reason to support and oppose Referendum 1. My question is: Did you read the bill (HB148/HB174)? If the answer is no, then note the quote above. When the decision is placed on your hands, your duty is to be informed. Listening to outrageous commercials (from either side) is insufficient and likely counterproductive. Attending debates and reading the voter pamphlet can be helpful. But if you didn't read the bill (and voted), you shirked your duty.

I read both bills forwards and backwards. OK, so not backwards, but I read the bills several times. All I saw was a program that helped very few Utah families while raising taxes on all Utah taxpayers. I saw taxpayer monies going into the private sector with minimal accountability to the taxpayers. I also so nothing that worked with Article X, Section 9 of the Utah Constitution.

These bills, as with all legislation, are written in legalese. I can fake legalese well enough to understand the bill, but most Utahns can't. It's a simple fact of life. However, the Office of the Lt Governor published a voter information pamphlet. I read the Legislative Fiscal Analyst's statement that in year 13 the savings would be less than the expenditures. That's on page 5.

Let's face it, 300,000 of my fellow Utahns decided for themselves that vouchers were bad.

-Bob

We not only won, but we went 29-0

Nobody cares if you went 42-40 if you win the NBA championship.

But, last night, Millionaire Bachelors for Choice lost every single county in Utah.

Winning in Salt Lake county was a given. Winning in Utah, Dais, and Washington Counties?

Priceless.

However, it is time to move on. Contrary to what Patrick Byrne and Richard Eyre would have you believe, Utahns did not stand up and say that they were OK with Utah's bad public schools. They just stood and said that giving unregulated money to private schools is not the answer.

Let's stand up and ask for sensible solutions to our education problems.

-Bob

Memo to Richard Eyre

Memo to Richard Eyre:

You made Ref 1 about choice.

Utah parents have chosen. So sorry we don't like your Oreos.

-Bob

Video for the UtPS victory Party at 8:03 PM