What Are They Thinking?!?

Even though a recent audit shows that over the last seven years schools were given $460 million by the Utah legislature to reduce class size, class sizes in Utah have not been lowered. Now a new bill has passed committee this year to give schools another $26 million to reduce class size in K-3.

Why would legislation be supported that gives more money towards something in a way that has so far been an unsuccessful effort? Has the situation miraculously changed?

The seriousness of this decision becomes more acute when we are told that even though the audit found that districts were likely using the previous $46 million correctly, most didn't specifically track where the dollars went. This is appalling.

This bill is extremely flawed for the following reasons:

Reason #1: Before giving money to schools, each school should have a comprehensive strategic plan on how it is going to improve academic achievement, especially for those students in greatest need. The plan needs to be based on research. It also needs to include the funds that will be needed to implement each part of the plan giving a rationale as to why this particular implementation would be the most cost effective.

Reason #2: An evaluation component needs to be required to show that resources are achieving the desired outcome which must be student achievement. For example, if class size reduction was part of the plan, the effectiveness of the plan wouldn't be determined by the class size reduction in the school but by the academic achievement of the students. In other words, the end goal, not the means to the end is what is most important.

Not only is this bill putting the cart before the horse--giving money before there is a plan--but it has made class size reduction, not student achievement, the ultimate goal.