In her March 24 column, Marjorie Cortez raised some interesting points about funding education in Utah. While most of her policy recommendations are debatable, I think we all agree that educational attainment is our goal for Utah children. Perhaps we should all look at the real factors affecting educational attainment.
The students who do best in schools live with a mom and dad who are married to each other, receive adequate nutrition, have parents with no drug or alcohol addictions and live at one address for longer than a year at a time.
In other words, family structure, nutrition, drug use and home stability count far more than per-pupil spending.
The traditional nuclear family is the ideal, in education as in everything else. Until we get serious about helping husband-and-wife-led families succeed, we can't claim to be serious about our children's education, no matter how much we spend on schools.
Steve Setzer
Springville