Last Minute Early Morning Committee Meeting Rushes Low Priorities

Did you ever wonder how last minute wheeling and dealing happens at the legislature? Here is a summary of some that I observed today.

Freshman Senator, Aaron Osmond, chairs the powerful Senate Education Committee this year. He got permission to hold one last committee meeting four days before the end of the session so two of his bills and two sponsored by others could get the stamp of approval of a last minute committee hearing. This despite the fact that we all know that rush decisions with little discussion are often poor decisions. Senator Osmond assured me before the meeting started that there had been lots of behind the scenes discussion before these bills were brought to this public committee meeting.

Sen. Osmond's SB216 would require the State Board of Education to spend $450,000 of Education Fund money to contract for online tools, hardware, software, training resources, and incident management processes to provide greater security for secondary schools. Former Utah First Lady, Jackie Leavitt, testified in favor of the bill.

I argued in committee that districts could better use that money to improve security in the way that is best for their district. I also said that last minute bills targeted at a specific service provided by a specific vendor were not in our best interest.

SB217, also sponsored by Sen. Osmond, would spend an as yet unknown amount of money for a group of BYU professors and secondary school math teachers to quickly create on-line math textbooks to be used to teach math that meets the new Utah Core math standards. It would create textbook information which would belong to the state and would be far less expensive than paper textbooks currently available.

Although I did not testify against the bill I am still concerned about a last minute vendor bill passing in an early morning special committee meeting.

Senator Jerry Stevenson, representing Davis County, sponsored SB248. It would spend $6 million of state economic development funds over 3 years to provide grants to 10 schools. An education technology vendor would then provide these schools with an integrated school-wide technology plan. This plan would include a mobile learning device for each student, computers for classrooms, and a wireless network with internet filtering.

I testified that educators would be happy to receive $6 million from other than an education fund, but that districts like Davis already have schools where every student has a netbook as their textbook. Implementing these things locally is a better way to innovate than top-down direction.

Finally, I was troubled that Sen. Niederhauser brought his bill, SB174, to the Education Committee at this late date when this committee has no background knowledge of land use issues. His bill would allow subdivision of large agricultural land parcels without producing a plat map.

I told the committee that this kind of last minute work did not lend itself to good decision making.

At the end of the day, this wheeling and dealing ended with all four bills passing the committee unanimously.

SB67 (Sen. Adams) Teacher Evaluations and Merit Pay

Utah's public school teachers who work in school districts receive pay increases according to a pay scale which recognizes the college degree they have earned and the number of years they have worked for their school district. These pay scales are referred to as “Steps and Lanes”. We all believe those two measures should make teachers better. But, wouldn't it be better to actually evaluate how well they teach and pay more to those teachers who excel in their teaching evaluation?

Senator Adams (R) has proposed a bill which, over the next 8 years, would gradually eliminate steps and lanes and replace them with locally designed pay scales which reward teachers for better annual performance evaluations.

One of the outstanding features of this bill reduces steps and lanes while allowing local school districts and charter schools to establish their own pay scales. It also lets local districts and charter schools establish the mix of which types of evaluation measures they will use. It calls for 60% of the evaluation to be based on student's growth in learning. The remaining 40% can be made up some combination of the principal's evaluation, parents evaluation, students evaluation and peer evaluation.

Beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, teachers will be evaluated annually as performing in one of four performance levels. No teacher may receive any kind of salary increase if he/she is rated in the lower half of the performance levels. Teachers in the higher performance categories may receive higher pay. The bill also allows salary supplements to teachers assigned to difficult schools, critically short teaching areas, or who have additional academic responsibilities.

The bill would require publication of a grade for each school and the ratings of the teachers in that school. It would also allow any principal to reject the transfer of any employee to his/her school.

Thank you, Senator Adams, for this rare and wonderful bill which provides broad-based performance evaluation and a transition to real pay for performance.

As of this writing the bill had passed the Senate Education Committee and was awaiting debate and a vote on the floor of the Senate.

Democracy at theUtah State Capitol

In early February 2012 many of our state legislators participated in a very common and typical event in the rotunda of the state capitol building which I consider to be an inappropriate political activity .

The Community Action Partnership of Utah, America's Poverty Fighting Network, sponsored a box luncheon for their member organizations with the state legislators.  

The event was part of what they called " Democracy Day". This may sound quite innocent until you consider that our founding fathers strongly opposed the form of government known as "democracy".  They much preferred the form of government which our constitution provides, a "republic". Consider these eight quotations from our founders:

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. 

        James Madison

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. 

        John Adams

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. 

       Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment

We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. 

       Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. 

       John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils. 

       Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. 

       Noah Webster

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. 

       John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

In addition, it seems wrong that a charitable organization spend its precious funds to buy lunch at an expensive venue for legislators and for their non-poverty stricken administrators. It seems doubly inappropriate that most of the funds these organizations have at their disposal come from federal and state taxpayers and were intended for the relief of the poor.

 I do not approve of my tax dollars being spent by government-sponsored non-profit organizations to attract legislators to convince them to appropriate more of my tax dollars for further misuse by the non-profits. 

May I suggest that our legislators should be willing to mingle and visit with citizens and groups who come to the capitol during the legislative session without the enticement of a free lunch or dinner paid for by monied special interests. Normal average citizens cannot afford to buy lunch for legislators in the capitol rotunda and should not have to do so in order to get a few minutes of their attention.
 

HB213 School Community Council Member Qualifications

Each public school in Utah elects a School Community Council (SCC). Among other things the SCC decides how the school will spend its share of funding provided by the School Lands Trust Fund. For most schools this runs from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. The SCC is made up of two types of members, parents and school employees. It was required that parents outnumber school employee members.

When first established, SCCs were often dominated by school district employees because school employees could be elected as school employee members or as parent members. In 2011 the legislature restricted district employees from being elected as parent members of the SCC in the district where they work. That change troubled school employees because they usually could not serve on the SCC of the school where their own children attended.

HB213 Would now revise the law again so that school employees could serve as parent members on the SCC where their child attends as long as that is not also the school that the parent works at. In order to prevent dominance of the SCC by school employees, HB213 also requires that parent members outnumber employee members by at least 2.

Some schools seem to have trouble recruiting enough parents to serve on the SCC. Because parents want their childrens' schools to be excellent, they should, as good and involved citizens, take their turn serving on their local School Community Council.

HJR8 Article V Amendments Convention

Our state legislature is considering a very dangerous resolution this session. It would call upon the U.S. Congress to “call a convention for proposing amendments” to the constitution of the United States. The amendment which HJR8 requests to be considered would require approval of a majority of states in order to increase the debt of the federal government. Pres. Ronald Regan's friend, Phyllis Schlafly, has adamantly opposed this idea for decades. The Utah Eagle Forum has consistently fought against this idea.

Why? The history of the creation of our U.S. Constitution provides a stark warning against any call for a convention to amend the constitution. A convention was called only to amend the Articles of Confederation. That convention exceeded its mandate and produced an entirely new constitution. That constitution was ratified by the states and became our current constitution.

If the states today were to call for a convention to amend the constitution, the convention would be organized by the current U.S. Congress and be conducted by the rules established by the current U.S. Congress. I do not yet trust our U.S. Senate and House to be as wise as our founders and retain the guarantees of our freedom and the protections of our rights which we currently have.

Proponents of this bill will argue that we are safe from a runaway convention because three fourths of the states must ratify any amendments the convention proposes. I argue that one must only consider the broad coverage and persuasiveness of the liberal main stream media to see how many states could be deceived into ratifying amendments which would damage our constitution with socialist ideas.

Another mistaken argument supporters cite is, “The constitution is divinely inspired and it provides this method of amending the constitution. Therefore we must use this provision.” I contend that God expects us to use the provisions from the divinely inspired constitution at the times and in the ways which are best. He does not dictate that we must gamble with the future of our constitution.

The amendment which this convention would consider, is also faulty. It would require a majority of states to approve any increase in the national debt. But states are already so dependent on federal funding of their state programs that most states would not commit fiscal suicide by refusing to approve an increase in the national debt and thus have their federal funding cut.

Unfortunately, there are a number of good (even conservative) members of the Utah legislature who believe this VERY risky convention is a good idea to rescue our republic and our fiscal stability. The bill was defeated in the last legislative session, but it is back with many new legislators now considering voting in favor of it. Many states have already passed this resolution.Utah must not be the state to put us over the top to call a new constitutional convention.

If you are willing to join in the fight against this constitutional convention, please contact as many legislators (especially the newer ones) as you can to ask them to vote against HJR 8.

HB123 Education Savings Accounts

Thank you, Representative John Dougall for sponsoring a landmark piece of education legislation. House Bill 123, Education Savings Accounts, if enacted, will change the way Utah pays for high school public education. Kindergarten through 8^th grade funding will NOT change at all. Rather than paying secondary schools a fixed amount per student enrolled (called the Weighted Pupil Unit or WPU) this bill provides for education funding, both state and district to be provided to each individual student's Education Savings Account. Students then pay for courses out of their education savings account. Students may choose courses provided by school districts, charter schools, applied technology centers, authorized online course providers, state-funded community colleges, state-funded universities, or private non-profit colleges or universities in Utah as contracted with the state board of regents who oversee higher education in Utah.

This bill will provide several significant benefits to our public education system. Because the Education Savings Account can be used for college or applied technology centers, students will be motivated to save some of the fund for use in earning college credits even after high school. It will encourage a productive and healthy competition among educational institutions for the enrollment dollars of students. Students will have the easy means of taking courses where they will be best served. Schools will not receive funding for those class periods when a student is not enrolled in a class.

Under this bill students will be eligible to participate in extracurricular activities at a school where the student takes one or more courses, whether a full-time or part-time student. Families with secondary students will enjoy a savings because course fees will be able to be paid from the education savings account whereas they are currently paid by students and their families.

Surely the public education establishment will not like this change in their system. But, citizens who value their own freedom to choose how they educate their children and value the benefits of free market competition will actively support this bill. Call or e-mail your legislators to voice your support for this historic bill.

More Than Half of Student Growth Now Enrolled in Charter Schools

The Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee today heard a stunning report about public charter schools. Although charter schools only enroll about 9% of all stutents in public schools, they enrolled more than half of the increased number of students in the state over last year. Estimated new students in Utah in 2012 are about 12,500. Charter schools enrolled about 6,500 new students while public school districts only enrolled some 6,000 new students. Charter schools also enrolled more new students than public schools in 2000, 2006 and 2009. This trend shows how popular charter schools are with parents. If we do not artificially restrict the number of charter schools, we can expect charter schools to continue to serve a large proportion of our growing student population. As some school districts struggle with growing pains, they may trust the charter school community to help with accommodating a large portion of that challenge. 

I love the robust and competitive form of education in charter schools. I also am pleased to see that so many families in Utah also recognize the quality of such a form of public education. One of the great strengths of charter schools is that parents must be very strongly involved not only in their student's learning, but also in the policies and running of the school. 

College and Career Counseling Bill - Progresses

Fri. Jan 27 - I was the only member of the public to testify against HB65. It passed the House Education committee with only the dissenting votes of Rep Sumsion and Rep Newbold. It may be that some committee members voted for it because they expect it to fail to win funding in the appropriations process. Without an appropriation, the bill is of no effect. My argument was that America's greatness comes from local creativity and meeting needs at the local level.....Not from implementing central planning which is dictated by the largest bureaucracy possible. This is an example of the latter.

Conflicting Good Principles - HB24

Rep. Jim Bird is sponsoring HB24 - Health Insurance for School Districts. This bill is an example of a bill which pits two good principles against each other. 

On the one hand it is commendable to require open market competition in purchasing health insurance for government entities. Substitute 1 of this bill would apply to charter schools and institutions of higher education.

On the other hand, the governing boards of each school district, charter school and institution of higher education are already highly motivated to obtain the best possible price for health insurance provided to their employees. This bill restricts the local control authority of the locally elected or appointed governing bodies who know the needs of their local constituents best.

There is an expense to school districts to prepare requests for proposals, but that is outweighed by the lower costs to government and to employees obtained through the competitive process. This law will ensure no government educational institutions get lazy and just keep the same health insurance providers when they might obtain a better price.

It is a tough call but I come down on the side of favoring the bill.

College and Career Counseling Bill - A Bad Idea

Rep. Patricia Arent  has proposed HB65 College and Career Counseling for High School Students. This bill is on the agenda of the House Education committee for 2:00 pm today. It would provide $800,000 to hire 18 high school counselors who would work only in helping students apply to college and seek scholarships.

This is a bad idea because it is one more thread tying the hands of school districts. It gives money for counseling, but forces the money to be used only for college and career counseling. School districts know best where to use funds for school counselors. Local control of schools is better than state level control of schools.


I had the opportunity, as a member of the Davis School Board, to speak on this subject to the Utah School Board Association Joint Legislative Committee. I will attend the committee meeting this afternoon to testify against the bill.

State Report of Federal Funds in Utah

Rep. Ken Ivory sponsored HB138 in 2011 which required the state of Utah to report how much federal funding it received, and how departments would be affected by a 5% cut in federal funding and a 25% cut.

Utah receives about $5 Billion of its $12 billion budget from the federal government. As federal debt becomes ever more overwhelming, I hope federal funding will be reduced to all states including Utah. That means Utah is acting very responsibly to consider how it will react to such cuts.

The state report is available for all to review at http://www.le.utah.gov/lfa/reports/bbib/appeac_12-14-11_1.pdf

2012 Utah Budget Working Details are Online

The 2012 Legislative Session Utah State Compendium of Budget Information (COBI) is available for all to review on line at http://le.utah.gov/lfa/reports/cobi2012/COBI2012.htm

If you want to research how much money is spent  in any state department this tool makes that easy for anyone at home.

I invite citizens to scrutinize this document in your area of interest and send me your comments and suggestions. I will be happy to pass on good ideas to the legislature.

Elementary Class Size Cap (SB31) Passes Committee Against My Recommendation

Sen. Karen Morgan (D) is sponsoring SB31 that will cost Utah Taxpayers $17 million per year. It will impose a maximum class size on all Kindergarten through 3rd grade classes throughout the whole state. It is an affront to local control of schools in each district. Local districts know best where they can use $17 million to improve education. It is a well accepted principle that quality of teaching is a much more important factor in the quality of learning than class size. Tell your legislators how you wish them to vote on this bill. 

I testified in the Senate Education committee against SB31.
1. Class size is easily measurable, but teacher quality has more influence on how well students learn.
2. This bill would take control of education funding away from local school districts and force them to spend set amounts on class size reduction.
3. If this were to pass, funding would be attached to it for now. But in future years of funding shortfall, low funding would not remove the class size limits. Districts would become caught with an unfunded mandate.
4. We will very likely find new technology in the near future which will allow us to teach more children more effectively with fewer teachers. This bill would force us to have set class sizes in spite of the benefits of new technology.

Every senator attending the committee meeting voted in favor of SB31. Those voting included Sen. Osmond, Sen. Thatcher, Sen. Stephenson, Sen. Morgan, and Sen. Stevenson.

Books I Recommend For Your Study

I have studied the following books in the past three years and recommend them to you.
TITLE                                                                    AUTHOR                                       
The 5000 Year Leap                                       W. Cleon Skousen
Atlas Shrugged                                                    Ayn Rand
A Conflict of Visions                                           Thomas Sowell
Democracy In America                                       Alexis de Tocqueville
Dismantling America                                          Thomas Sowell
The Forgotten Man                                             Amity Shlaes
Free To Choose                                                   Milton and Rose Friedman
The Freedom Agenda                                         Mike Lee
Human Action                                                    Ludwig Von Mises
Liberal Fascism                                                  Jonah Goldberg
Makers and Takers                                             Peter Schweizer
New Deal or Raw Deal?                                    Burton Folsom
No Apology                                                       Mitt Romney
Nullification                                                       Thomas E. Woods
The Original Argument                                      Glenn Beck and Pat Gray
A Patriot's History of the United States             Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
The Road To Serfdom                                        Friedrich A. Hayek
Saving Freedom                                                 Jim DeMint
To Save America                                               Newt and Callista Gingrich
Voucher Wars                                                    Clint Bolick
The Wealth of Nations                                      Adam Smith
What's So Great About America                      Dinesh D'Souza
10 Big Lies About America                              Michael Medved
5 Big Lies About American Business               Michael Medved
America Alone                                                  Mark Steyn
Broke                                                                 Glen Beck and Kevin Balfe
Crimes Against Liberty                                     David Limbaugh
The Communist Manifesto                               Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Death By Liberalism                                        J.R. Dunn
Demonic                                                           Ann Coulter
End The Fed                                                     Ron Paul
Guilty                                                               Ann Coulter
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History  Thomas E. Woods
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism   Kevin D. Williamson
The Politics of Bad Faith                                  David Horowitz
Return To Prosperity                                        Arthur B. Laffer

Utah Legislative Session Begins January 23, 2012

After months of preparation and interim committee meetings, the annual 45-day legislative session begins Monday, January 23, 2012. I will be attending and closely watching the session every day as I have for the last three sessions. I will be giving priority to education committee meetings, Revenue and Taxation committee meetings, and any other proceedings that affect our rights and freedoms.

If you have an interest in observing the process or sharing your opinion with legislators, leave a comment or call me.