Do the Math, Senator Bramble
Utah Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble has called for a legislative audit to determine where state funding for smaller classrooms is going. The Provo Republican and CPA wants accountability. He’s not happy with the knowledge that in spite of several legislative efforts to funnel more money toward this goal, classrooms really aren’t getting much smaller.
Oh, this is so duh. I mean, double duh.
Good lord, Curt, do the math. Here’s the way the problem might look in a standard fourth-grade textbook:
Huge Utah families + no desire to curb family size + no extra taxes levied against huge families for their strain on the school system = WAY BIG CLASSROOMS.
Is that so hard? The kids keep on coming. The money needs to keep coming, too. For this, you need a legislative audit?
You people are making us nuts.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I had to laugh at this. The problem with asking some of these guys to “do the math” is that they don’t really believe the numbers that the legislative analysts give them. I have actually heard some of my Republican friends claim that the “Public Education Lobby” is making the numbers up.
Whether you look at births per thousand or the fertility rate, the undeniable fact is that the Average Utah Family is 50% larger than the average for the rest of the nation. We do in fact have the largest families of any state and that translates into the lowest per pupil funding - below all 50 states and Washington DC. and the largest classroom sizes. Yet we are spending more of our State budget on Public Education than any state of the Union.
The next big issue to hit Utah is going to be the fact that about 40% of our teachers will retire over the next ten years at the same time we are adding another 100,000 students. In addition we are no longer producing enough teachers in Utah to cover current demand. We are having to import from other states. Who would want to come and teach under these circumstances especially with a legislature that is constantly bashing public education?
At what point do these legislators figure out that years of neglect have finally broken the system?
February 21st, 2007 at 8:06 am
Just think of how much money we would have for education if the LDS Church and other religious organizations, which IMO perpetuate such large families, actually had to pay taxes. I mean if “the church” is going to act like a large corporation, then they should be treated like one.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:47 am
Bruce and Spencer are correct. On top of this the state of Utah is now going to subsidize private schools with up to $48 million a year via vouchers.
My only conclusion is that the foresightedness of the state’s legislators isn’t much longer than their penises.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
First of all, I think Sen Bramble brings up an excellent point. The state spends extra money to lower class size. The way they do this is they calculate increases in student population and inflation and then tack on extra dollars outside of dollars dedicated to certain funds, and these dollars are supposed to go solely to reducing class size, but regardless of the money spent (which is in addition to the extra money already going to public schools to account for the growth due to large families), class sizes continue to increase.
What you guys don’t seem to understand is that the funds that Sen. Bramble is talking about, have nothing to do with whether Utah has large families or not. I’m probably wasting my breath talking to you about this, but oh well.
I’ll keep going.
If you think we need more money in the system, then why do you oppose vouchers? It would save the state money.
Can you seriously not understand how vouchers will save Utah money? Let me spell it out for you.
Right now, when you include all costs (debt and capital costs, too), Utah spends a little over $6,000 per student in the public schools.
The average voucher amount is estimated to be a little under $2,000 per voucher user.
So for every student who switches to a private school with a voucher and would have otherwise gone to the public schools if the voucher did not exist, the state saves over $4,000.
With less than 3% of Utah students in private schools, even if every private school student got a voucher in 2007-08, it would only require about an additional 2% of the student population to switch from public to private schools before the state would start to save money, thus leaving more money for fewer students in the public school system.
And the comments about the Church not being taxed–It’s business entities are taxed. It’s its non-profit activities that aren’t. And whether you’d like to admit it or not, it’s thanks to the LDS Church that Utah can get away with spending so little per student compared to the rest of the US. Why? Because it keeps families strong, stresses the importance of education and self-reliance, and even keeps lots of people off the welfare rolls who otherwise would be on them. I could go on.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 am
Hey, dhansen:-),
Just did the math. As the number of students who use vouchers to go to private schools increases, the average per-pupil cost to the tax payer (especially NonMormons with small families) will also increase. That is, salaries, utilities, maintenance and other fixed costs probably won’t decrease at all by sending a few kids to private schools. The absolute amount of money that we spend on the kids in public schools won’t change much by virtue of sending a few kids to private schools (the numerator - the absolute amount of money spent - will stay about the same, the denominator - the number of kids in public schools - will decrease). What will change is that we’ll spend a lot of extra money sending a few kids to private schools.
But the wife and I will remember your words of encouragement when we get hammered at tax time. And because we’ll get hammered in more ways than one, I think that we’ll actually contribute even a little more to the state’s coffers (we’re happy to contribute to the latter source of revenue and you’re welcome).
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Let’s see. I have an office building that costs 10 million
dollars and that houses 1000 employees. If I get rid of 10% of the employees that office building now only costs 9 million dollars. Now I understand.
February 24th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
brucew, you seem more interested in snappy comebacks than making sense. No one thinks that we’ll have fewer students in the school system in five years, with or without vouchers. In the ten years I’ve lived in American Fork, the Alpine School District has gone to the voters four times to ask for bond money to build more and more schools, because the school population continues to explode, in pace with the area’s growth in total population. Perhaps with vouchers moving some students to private schools, at a reduced cost to the state and its taxpayers, in the coming ten years we’ll only have to bond three more times instead of four. Seems a minor difference, but it would save millions–probably more millions than we will spend on vouchers
February 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Actually, Brucew’s point was the same as mine (I think). His “comeback” was hardly snappy (he didn’t say, “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy that I’m paying for both the cost of public school and your private-school voucher?” for example). He just made sense.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
If you want a really snappy comeback, you might want to see the Tribune article about the “school choice true believer” who just tried to spend her voucher to put her children in private school. Wouldn’t you know it? The voucher didn’t even begin to cover the cost of the best schools (tuition up in the $15,000 range). The less expensive schools refused to take her kids because she was of the wrong religion (yes the law says they can disciminate). Others told her there wasn’t any room. If this law stands it will only benefit those who can afford to put their kids in private school now and I suspect those bond elections will just keep on coming.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
brucew, the events in the article do sound harsh. The Utah Board of Education hasn’t even set out the rules of engagement yet–let’s let things settle out just a little bit before deciding the process is broken. Perhaps this topic is too cold to bring anything else up, but I do have a question after reading Holly’s original post. She said big families don’t pay taxes for the extra burden they put on the school system. In my book, however, fees count as taxes. Last year for a junior high student and a senior high student, we paid about $350 in fees, none of it extra-curricular related, all just regular school. Fees are smaller for elementary students, but that still means a family with six school age children could easily be paying over $800-1,000 extra in fees/taxes. That obviously doesn’t come close to covering the cost of education, but is still a significant extra amount. Exactly how much more in taxes do you all want families to pay?