Some 40% of voters in the 2016 Utah Priorities Project survey named teacher quality as their top priority with regard to K-12 education. This beat out “college and career readiness,” “class size,” and “test scores.”
A research brief published today by Utah Foundation also shows more than two-thirds of voters (68%) ranked education at 4 or 5 on a five-point scale in their level of concern. This put it at #3 on the Utah Priorities Project top ten list. This is fairly consistent with previous years. A listing of the top ten issues is available on the Utah Foundation website at https://www.utahfoundation.org/priorities-project-2016/.
41% of the voter sample said they would pay higher taxes to support public education, while 32% disagreed. “Voters’ high level of concern about education is somewhat aligned with their willingness to increase taxes for education,” said Shawn Teigen, Research Director at Utah Foundation. “While not a majority, it is interesting to see that more voters would agree than disagree with paying higher taxes that are directed toward education. Based upon other survey questions, you could say that voters want some of this funding to be used toward increasing teacher quality.”
