1. What do you think are the two biggest issues or challenges facing public education in the state of Utah? Why? (question from selection committee)

One of the biggest challenges facing public education right now is the rapid growth of knowledge.  Until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century.  By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years.  Today on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.  IBM theorizes it could someday become every 12 hours.  How are we teaching students to adapt to this exponential knowledge growth? When I tour schools I am always surprised to see how similar they are to the classes I taught 15 years ago. I am even more shocked to realize how similar they are to the classes I attended as a student 30 years ago.  With the exponential change in the knowledge curve we should be seeing classrooms that look very different than they did 30 years ago.  We need to work with our teachers to help them adapt to this new growth curve.  It is crucial that we teach students how to learn, how to synthesis data, what data is relevant, and what to do with the data once we understand it. One way impact the way classrooms structure is to improve teacher training.  The Utah State Board of Education needs to work in conjunction with the teaching colleges in the state to improve the strategies of teachers that come out of their institutions with.  We also need to work with our current teachers in ongoing professional development that is focused on how to help students learn instead of just covering the latest trends in the core.

Funding will always be an issue in education.  This is because some people believe the more money you spend the better quality you receive.  This is a not always a true statement! Neither is the opposite or converse statement.  The less money you spend equals less quality.   We should be more concerned with the value we receive in education.  We need to take the funding that has been appropriated to education and ensure there is no waste.  We must be responsible with the money that tax payers have entrusted with us and guarantee that the maximum amount possible benefits each student.  We can do this by not treating a budget line item as an “entitlement”.  We need to continually review how money is spent and search for creative ways to make it stretch further and not be afraid to make hard decisions that eliminate waist.   By looking at the current students and their needs we can make more fiscally appropriate spending decisions.