Herbert says he wants Utah schools to be the best in the nation, but that talk is torpedoed by classroom funding that is the absolute worst. He hopes Utah can grow out of last place, but acknowledges it will take years, attributing the problem to big families — not to the $1.2 billion that the Utah Foundation recently reported has been diverted from education by years of tax cutting.
It’s so bad that the state’s most prominent business leaders have formed Our Schools Now seeking a ballot initiative to hike taxes to pump $750 million into education. The public supports it by a wide margin. Herbert opposes it, but there is room for the governor to find middle ground, either backing a smaller increase or focusing it on those making more than $200,000 who benefited most from Utah’s flat tax and economic growth.
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