Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

I value education.
Utah is last place among all 50 states in per-pupil spending (And Davis county spending is less than the Utah average). Our classroom sizes are almost 50% larger than the national average.
It is not hard to find personal examples of things that are not going as well as they should because the system is stretched thin. In the junior high my kids attend, the math faculty has been cut back. At my friend's daughter's high school, the Biology class is taught by the basketball coach who gives the kids an assignment and then goes to the back of the room to watch basketball game tape. I spoke with a 6th grade teacher in town who has 34 kids in her class, of whom 7 are resource kids, and who also has been asked to implement the new iPad program for the school without adequate technical support from the district to keep the iPads functioning. In all of these cases, the kids will still get through the year and they will still learn some, but they won't learn as well as they could have if we would have provided qualified teachers with appropriate class sizes and adequate teacher support.
My pledge is that I will work with teachers, principals, school boards, students and parents to make our schools the best they can be.

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