SANDY -- Young children in Utah must improve their reading scores.
Teacher training in Utah's 40 school districts must be improved, and some middle-school students must have some extra help.And parents must have their kids ready to learn when they walk through the schoolhouse doors for the first time, Gov. Mike Leavitt said Monday at meetings of the Utah School Superintendents Association in Sandy.
We've got to "ratchet up" the pace and quality of public education, the governor said this morning in a sneak preview to what he termed an aggressive education budget.
Although he gave no financial details, one focus is in reading, in light of recent declining elementary test scores. For the second year, Utah fifth-graders slipped below the national median score on the Stanford Achievement Test mandated by the Utah State Legislature.
"The costs to society of a student not reading are just fundamentally unacceptable," the governor said in the first of a week full of budget announcements.
"The cost of that failure is so high in the long run that it could spell the difference between our economic success and our economic failure. . . . We cannot accept failure with any student, not one."
More details of the education budget will be revealed over the next week. Leavitt has said this will be one of his toughest budget years in memory, and that other state departments will probably take base budget cuts to pay for his initiatives.
The governor's reading initiative includes parents' responsibilities.
He said he wants to help parents learn -- or remind them -- of their role in assuring students come to school ready to learn, and knowing their colors, shapes, let- ters and numbers.
The sneak preview of the proposal was met with curiosity and initial praise by superintendents and state officials. "In general, it sounds hopeful. In specific, we don't know enough," said Nancy De Ford, superintendent of the Park City School District.
Educators were particularly pleased with the reading initiative, which Tim Chatelain, Weber School District superintendent, said is consistent with what they're looking at as a district.
Deputy State Superintendent Laurie Chivers praised the governor's emphasis on education. "We need to focus on reading and make some major changes for our kids."
The governor has four other education-related initiatives.
He wants to refocus on the core mission of education -- competence -- and help motivate students "to increase the velocity of their own learning."
He wants to increase the quality of the learning environment in class size initiatives and in dealing separately -- particularly in the middle schools -- with students who are not prepared to learn.
The governor said such students sometimes can disrupt learning opportunities for others or create an unsafe environment.
The governor also will address the quality of teaching. The governor said this initiative will include teacher development training to help ensure the best and the brightest are in the schools and have the capacity to improve the system if necessary.
In the past, Leavitt has said he wants to rid the system of what he has called "a few" incompetent teachers.
The final initiative is technology, the governor's pet project also in higher education. Leavitt, the co-founder of Western Governors University, believes schoolchildren need a fundamental literacy base in technology to enter the 21st century.
In addition, the governor said he wants to use more than one measure to gauge how students are learning.
Leavitt first talked about his concerns for Utah's education last month at meetings of the Republican Governors Association in New Orleans. Chief executive officers throughout the nation are grappling with the way children learn.
In California, Gov. Pete Wilson has worked to reduce class sizes, strengthen teacher preparation for reading programs and has enacted statewide testing standards.
Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar has increased funding for elementary and secondary schools by more than $1.5 billion and has established much-publicized reform efforts in the Chicago Public School system.
Michigan Gov. John Engler supported "bring a gun and you're done" legislation, under which 568 kids who brought guns or knives to school have been expelled since January 1995.
New York Gov. George Pataki has increased funding for pre-kindergarten programs and instituted school report cards that require each school district to release an annual report card allowing parents to measure and compare performance.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush has a goal to teach every Texas child to read and has secured $32 million for intensive reading academies throughout the state.
Leavitt said he has worked closely with other governors -- including Bush -- to build his initiatives.
Barbara Lawrence, state testing director, said it was hard to form a complete opinion about the governor's proposal without more detail, but she said she likes the idea of using more than one assessment. She said the philosophy behind the governor's reading initiative could affect test scores, but that effect will come down the road.
"We're going to have to be patient," she said.
"Lawmakers and others are going to have to hang in there long enough to see the results."
The governor will take his education plans to communities in Farmington and West Valley City during the next two days and on Wednesday will devote a special edition of his monthly radio show, "Let Me Speak to the Governor," to the topic. The program is carried by KSL in Salt Lake, KUTA in Blanding, KVNU/KVFM in Logan, KMTI/KMXU in Manti, KOAL in Price, KSVC in Richfield, KDXU and KSGI in St. George and KVEL in Vernal.