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Show auditing agency In calling for the formation in Utah of an independent inde-pendent agency to audit the productivity of schools in the state, a committee of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, Com-merce, reacting to a report from a group headed by a member of the Salt Lake Board of Education, makes some interesting points "We purchase no product about which we know less and pay more than the learning produced by our formal education process," the report says. "Few things are needed more than the evaluation of our educational system . . . yet there is no area of educational philosophy about which there seems to be more difference of opinion than this," it went on. Critical of the educational system in Utah in many places, the report did make some very valid points. One of the most important was that an independent audit of educational production in the State would be a very effective tool in showing legislators what they, as trustees trus-tees of public funds, were getting for increasing invest-, mcnts in education here. An independent audit of productivity should be feared by none other than those who know down deep that they are not producing as well as they might within budgetary limitations. Districts operating professional, progressive programs which are not afraid to innovate when it appears that innovation might better reach an educational goal, should have little to fear. Unless such an auditing agency became a bureaucratic bureau-cratic monster itself, costing much more to operate than it was worth in terms of value, it sounds to us to be a good idea. |