Utah In 2008 Is Shortchanging Public Education Compared To Utah In 1991
The Utah Foundation released a study today on historical trends in taxation and spending in Utah. They included this graph on education spending.
I really didn’t know that education funding had been in such a decline relative to our state’s economy or the rest of our state’s government spending over the decades (see the whole summary report). It is a lot harder to be impressed when our legislature brags about education increases when one notes that education spending as a percentage of our economy has declined to such an extent over the years. It is also harder for me to sympathize with those who stubbornly argue that Utah can’t afford to do better than last in the nation when it comes to per pupil spending when the information from this graph is considered.
Thanks legislators for the increases in ‘08 and ‘09. Would you mind bringing relative public education spending back in line with what was being spent in 1991 when I graduated from high school? I’d sure like it if you tried a little harder not to shortchange my kids.
Check out the whole Utah Foundation Report and Summary.
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Yes - and if you recall, our teachers were doing walk-outs and threatening a strike in 1990, so even back then, things weren’t so good. It’s really a marvel to me that Utah’s education spending and etc. are the way they are. I’m semi-baffled by it.
Comment by Lydia — June 18, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
Color me unimpressed with the Utah Foundation’s methodology. Education expenditures have increased in all metrics that might matter—they are up in nominal dollars, they are up in real dollars, and if I’m not mistaken, per pupil expenditures are up as well.
In one metric education spending is not up—education spending as a percentage of state government. This one, of course, is the one that the Utah Foundation focuses on. But this metric is meaningless.
The Utah Foundation argues this metric shows “priorities.” The assumption is that if the overall Utah budget increases, the education funding , transportation funding, or whatever funding should increase by the same percentage as the overall budget. That’s a step too far. People just don’t think about spending like that—in state budgeting or in their personal lives.
Here’s a hypothetical. Let say that last year I made $50,000. For my wife’s birthday I spent $100 on a present. This year, I made $150,000. Is my wife less of a priority if I only spend $250 on a birthday present? What if I spend $1000 for her birthday? Does that make her an ultra-priority?
When legislatures look at spending from year to year, they usually think like normal people. They think about nominal dollars and maybe, if they feel sophisticated, they look at real dollars. Seldom do they get out their spreadsheets and look at the state budget, over time, in real dollars, and compare percentages of each spending category.
The Utah Foundation’s methodology might show some implicit “priorities” but these priorities aren’t ones that matter because it’s not how people think. People think about nominal dollars, real dollars, and per pupil expenditures.
Comment by Daniel — June 18, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
Lydia,
I’m glad you stopped by! I hope you guys are doing well. I think you are right that it is pretty clear the education hasn’t been a huge priority for our legislators. This graph goes part of the way toward demonstrating that.
Daniel,
I agree with your point that education spending has increased. I’d be interested in seeing an inflation adjusted record of per pupil spending for the past 20 years.
You seem to have slightly misunderstood the basis of the study. It is demonstrating education spending as a portion of the whole state economy…not just government spending. Of course this only further validates your point that this study isn’t “how people think”.
Maybe they should. If education spending had been maintained at a more consistent percentage of our state’s economy we wouldn’t be faced with the teacher shortages and unpreparedness for growth our education system is currently facing.
Your object lesson was nice but I think not so helpful. Education in Utah has been underfunded for decades. Utah’s leaders had an opportunity to grow our education system as economic growth took place over the decades. They managed to keep overall government spending in line with our economy’s growth but failed when it came to Utah’s public schools.
You can defend the shortchanging of Utah’s education system all you want but you can’t change the fact that Utah is in trouble right now and our legislature’s historical neglect of public education hasn’t contributed to a solution. It is good that they are finally doing something about it but there isn’t much doubt that if they could mail their new found belief in the importance of public education back to 1992 we would all be better off now.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — June 19, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Daniel,
I just have to say that your object lesson fails to account for one thing, a woman has to many immeasurable emotions to account for, so it really doesn’t matter how much you spend on her, you are probably not going to get it right. Public Education however is not nearly so complicated or picky. If you are going to compare something lets do apples to apples. Where does our Public Education Expenditures per $1,000 of personal income chart stack up when compared to other states, or even the national average? I don’t know the answer but I am guessing that Utah isn’t ranked very high.
Comment by Dignin — June 19, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Good post and refutation in the comments, Jeremy. Given the fact that Utah will always place a higher load on its education system based on our culture, I never expect Utah to have one of the top per-pupil spending rates in the nation. But it would certainly make sense that when the economy does exceptionally well, educational spending should grow at approximately the same rate. Thanks for putting that out there.
We graduated in the same year. Now that our twenty-year reunion is approaching (which I no more plan to attend than any of the others which have past), are you also beginning to feel old?
Comment by Derek — June 21, 2008 @ 11:50 am
Thanks Derek.
Yes…Oh so old!
Comment by Jeremy Manning — June 22, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Great post.
Comment by CraigJ — June 27, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
jeremy,
you throw out the “underfunded” card here and i have to ask, “what is fully funded?” is it a magic number is 10K, 15K 30K? NJ spends more than 15K per child and has one of the worst performing public school systems in the country.
to me underfunded is a useless and meaningless catch phrase public ed has used to justify growing public ed spending by 2x in real dollars over the past 30 years, and what do we have to show for it…little to no improvement. so is it really underfunded or are the funds just not being used the right way?
just a thought.
Comment by lyall — August 7, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
Lyall,
Education funding as a share of Utah’s economy decreased drastically between 1991 and 2007. We face some significant problems now because of that short sightedness. Utah doesn’t have enough classroom space or teachers for the waves of new students brought on by our state’s unique demographics. My kids education might suffer because of that. Pardon me if I don’t find your comments about school funding in New Jersey particularly useful.
Of course you’re right that we don’t want to be like New Jersey or Washington DC but that doesn’t mean that it is ok for Utah’s education system to fail in the face of huge upcoming waves of new students because our legislature failed to properly plan for the future.
If the funds are “just not being used the right way” we should do something about that but it would be the height of foolishness to sit back in the face of our upcoming demographic challenges and argue that we shouldn’t pay more for our education system because we might end up like New Jersey.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — August 7, 2008 @ 11:44 pm