Some day when you're sitting around twiddling your thumbs, give your mind to the task of solving Utah's school fees problem. It will give you something to do for a long time.
Two committees that have studied the issue this summer - one sponsored by the State Office of Education and the second by the Legislature - have done little more than clarify some of the elements of the problem. Resolving them will take at least another year, and some of the peripheral questions may never be answered to the satisfaction of a majority.At the crux of the matter is the fundamental question of whether Utah children are entitled to a free, tax-supported education. The state's constitution says yes, but the mere existence of fees seems to say, "Yes, but only if you're willing and able to pay for it."
Almost everyone on both committees agreed that students shouldn't have to pay for the basics of education - textbooks and the other materials essential to their classroom work.
But when the Legislature opened the door to fees in grades 7-12 in the late 1980s, schools rushed to fill a perpetual Utah funding vacuum with fees. Now the charges are in place and the schools depend on the fee income to support the basic program. They would have great difficulty giving up the money without having something to replace it.
The Legislature will be asked to come up with $3.6 million so that students can go to school without paying textbook fees.
That would take care of one small element of the school fee problem and probably the most important.
But it won't resolve the question of dozens of other fees students routinely pay to participate fully in their schools' academic programs. They pay for art materials, for shop class materials, for computer materials, for lab materials, for music instrument rentals, for photography classes, etc., etc., etc. They pay and they pay so they can attend classes that are not frills, but are courses they need to generate the credit they must have to graduate. What they pay for the "extracurriculars" is another story.
For the Legislature to cover the costs of the "regular school day" fees would take another $6 million.
If money were the only issue at stake, the questions could be more easily resolved. Either the state could ante up enough to pay for public education, or the status quo could be maintained, with parents of schoolchildren paying the "user fees" to get their children through the system.
But the related questions of access and excess have become part of the debate, and, being philosphical, they are much more sticky. Any time you talk about money, you have to face the fact that in this imperfect world, there are those who have it and those who don't. Those who don't, in this case, stand to lose a valuable commodity - the education of their children. I am assuming that the Legislature will see the patent unfairness of that potential and come up with some solution that will maintain access to the system for every child.
The excess issue? Well, if you think the debate has been tough to this point, just wait until they start trying to pare back school programs that some legislators have concluded are out of hand - things like athletics, cheerleading, drill teams, extravagant trips hither and yon.
The State Office committee has suggested spending caps on items such as these. This particular committee proposal isn't likely to make it into the legislative arena this year, with the "small bites" approach that appears to be favored at present.
But when the debate does start, I can only hope to be on vacation.