Utah has built a well-earned reputation for doing big things. We grow. We plan. We innovate. We solve problems collaboratively. And we deliver results.
That approach has paid off. Utah consistently ranks among the best states in the nation for public education, and for the third consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named Utah the best state overall. These results reflect strong families, engaged communities and, above all, extraordinary teachers who stretch limited resources further than almost anywhere else in the country.
But there is one fundamental challenge holding us back, and it is the issue teachers raise with me more than any other: class sizes.
That is why I am sponsoring HB418, legislation designed to begin a serious, multiyear effort to reduce classroom overcrowding in Utah schools.
Lowering class size is not a slogan. It means hiring more teachers, adding classrooms and making sustained investments over time. This is not a problem we can solve in a single year or with a single bill. HB418 is meant to start an honest conversation about what Utah’s class size goals should be and how we responsibly work toward them.
Anyone who has stepped inside a Utah classroom has seen the reality. Teachers managing 30, 35, sometimes even 40 students at a time. When classrooms grow that large, everything becomes harder. Individual feedback is delayed. Small learning gaps widen. Behavioral challenges multiply. Teachers are forced into triage rather than instruction.
This is not a reflection of teacher quality. It is a matter of arithmetic.
Utah consistently ranks among the states with the highest student-to-teacher ratios in the nation, at roughly 22 students per teacher compared to a national average closer to 15. The fact that Utah still achieves strong outcomes despite this reality speaks volumes about our educators’ dedication. But it also raises an important question — imagine what Utah could accomplish if class sizes were smaller.
Smaller classes are not a luxury; they are a high-return investment.
Education debates often get stuck in abstractions, but class size is one of the rare issues where common sense and serious research align. Tennessee’s landmark Project STAR experiment showed that smaller classes in early grades lead to better long-term outcomes, including higher earnings and higher rates of college attendance.
That matters because it reframes the question. Smaller classes are not simply a cost; they are an investment in our kids with long-term returns for families, employers and taxpayers. And they matter most in early grades, when children are learning to read and when teacher attention can change a life’s trajectory.
For decades, Utah’s rapid growth has made meaningful class size reductions feel perpetually out of reach. We were constantly catching up, building new schools and hiring teachers just to keep pace.
But the demographic ground is shifting. Projections now show declining growth in Utah’s K-12 population over the next decade. That does not mean every community will shrink equally, but it does mean Utah is approaching a turning point. For the first time in a generation, we have an opportunity to reinvest not just in capacity but also in quality.
Importantly, HB418 does not create an unfunded mandate. The fiscal note estimates that achieving meaningful class size reductions would require between $112 million and $221.8 million in annual state investment. This is a serious commitment, but it is also a realistic one, and it finally puts real numbers behind a goal teachers have raised for years. This is a flat budget year, and it will take time to determine how to best implement this responsibly. HB 418 begins a long-overdue conversation about how we prioritize and fund this work.
Utah has never waited for problems to become crises before acting. We plan ahead. We set goals. We build consensus. And we invest where it matters most.
Few investments matter more than giving teachers the ability to teach and students the opportunity to be seen.
HB418 is not the end of the conversation. It is the beginning of one Utah must have. And it is exactly the kind of challenge the Utah Way was built to meet.