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Show JjEA raps Foundation report on school quality I, fit I'tnh Foundation Vjn't tell Htilf the story L'j rn''s release on the i"ist and quality of seh.xd services." a Utah Education Educa-tion Association official declared Wednesday. Dr. Daryl J. McCarty, the UEA official, said the Utah Koumlation used "a faulty yardstick" to measure mea-sure the efficiency of schools and "failed to consider some obvious reasons for rising costs of schools." The UKA leader noted that tho Utah Foundation used scholastic aptitude test scores and related them to a "decline in public school achievement." achieve-ment." "Those tests don't measure mea-sure achievement, they measure aptitude--and there's a vast difference," McCarty said. He said that the Utah Foundation "seems to have a blind side when considering school costs." "Education doesn't cost, it pays," McCarty said. He pointed to a U.S. Senate study in 1972 of undereducated persons which concluded that each dollar invested in education educa-tion would have generated $6 of national income over the lifetime of those persons. At that date crime and welfare expenditures attributable at-tributable to inadequate education were estimated at $6 billion a year and rising. McCarty said the Utah Foundation's statement ignored the fact that the state's schools are educating educat-ing far more young people than ever before. In recent years the Utah State Legislature has provided pro-vided additional funding for educating handicapp--ed students, students ifrom ethnic minorities, expanded school guidance -counseling, special programs pro-grams for gifted and .talented students, expanded ex-panded music programs, and reduced class size. The Legislature has appropriated funds to pay the full cost of school textbooks, the collection the skyrocketing costs of utilities, student transportation transpor-tation and Social Security. Many of those items did not improve students' test scores one point, because they were not intended to do so, McCarty said. He said another half-told half-told part of the Utah Foundation's story was the matter of the dramatic social changes during the past decade. McCarty cited the fact that one of every six students comes from a single-parent family; the "do-your-own thing" altitudes alti-tudes that prevailed during dur-ing the years of the drug culture; that $G00 million is spent each year on school vandalism; 20 million mil-lion children live with an alcoholic parent; the growth of child abuse and neglect during recent years. "This did a lot of damage to education, and school teachers alone could not control any of those social phenomena," McCarty said. "Anyone who wants to hear a horror story about, child abuse or child neglect should ask a. teacher about these things, because teachers know about them," McCarty Mc-Carty said. "In contrast to implications implica-tions of the Utah Foundation Founda-tion article, I'm thoroughly thorough-ly convinced that teachers are more dedicated now to the teaching and development develop-ment of kids than they ever have been," the UEA official said. "Teachers have to be that way today because the situation demands it," he said, adding: "The teachers of thirty years ago were largely concerned with academic excellence alone. The teachers of 1978 have to deal with each kid's heart as well as that kid's brain." McCarty pointed to what he called a misunderstanding misun-derstanding of the teacher's teach-er's role that was reflected in the Utah Foundation's statement on schools. The statement attributed attribut-ed parent complaints about trends in "open" and "progressive" educational educa-tional methods that have shifted emphasis away from educational "basics." "ba-sics." McCarty said: "It isn't teachers who decide the curriculum in schools. The people who decide such matters are school administrations admin-istrations and school boards. It's true that some administrations and school boards give a few teachers some input, but this is only minimal. "Teachers who seek to change the curriculum to reflect needs they see in the schools are often told, 'you cannot change the curriculum because this is a prerogative of the district administration and Board of Education." McCarty raised questions ques-tions about other aspects of the report. Many statements in the report were not attributed. attribut-ed. Rather, they were linked to unnamed sources sourc-es such as "critics," and concerned citizens. Much of the report was drawn from a magazine article that applied to the nation as a whole, not Utah. The research actually performed by the Utah Foundation, the so-called "cost-benefit analysis," is based on highly questionable question-able premises, McCarty said. "There's no question that education requires an investment from taxpayers," taxpay-ers," McCarty said. "But that's just what it is an investment. It's one that has paid off for centuries, and will continue to do so. " He added, however, that he and other educators educa-tors recognize that the schools have problems and shortcomings, and that the public has an unquestioned right to complain about them. "We do ask that the complaints be based on facts. " he said. |