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Show Utah Challenged to Get the Most Results from School Expenditures Utah is faced with the particular par-ticular challenge of obtaining obtain-ing maximum results from the expenditure of available funds for education. This was the point brought out by Utah Foundation, the private re search organization, in their latest analysis of public school comparisons and trends. tr-ends. According to the Foundation Founda-tion study, Utah ranks very high in its educational load and very low in its ability to finance education. Consequently, Conseq-uently, the effort put forffiby Utah to support public ' education edu-cation is considerably above regional and national averages. aver-ages. Despite the superior effort made to support education, Utah ranks relatively low in the amount expended per school child. Thisof course is due to the large number ol children in the State to be educated, ed-ucated, and relatively low financial ability of its people. The Foundation report emphasizes em-phasizes that per pupil expenditures ex-penditures are not always a good measure of financial adequacy ad-equacy or educational quality. qual-ity. It cited examples in Utah where per pupil expenditures expen-ditures in isolated rural districts dis-tricts . are several times those in the larger urban districts. dis-tricts. It concluded that differences dif-ferences in organizational efficiency," ef-ficiency," population concentration, concen-tration, geographic characteristics, charact-eristics, special pupil problems prob-lems and prevailing wage and salary levels are all factors fac-tors that may account for per pupil cost variations among districts as well as among states. In the past, Utah has enjoyed en-joyed a comparative advantage advant-age over other states in the relative efficiency 61 its school .system. Study notes however, that during recent years this advantage has narrowed nar-rowed as other states have made rapid strides in the consolidation of school districts dis-tricts and the elimination cf small, inefficient, but expensive ex-pensive schools. Utah, on the other hand, has not made any substantial organizational improvements in district organization in more than half a century. The Foundation report observes ob-serves that various study groups over the years have urged further consolidation of school districts in Utah. Recent developments have stressed the need for greater accountability in the evaluation evalua-tion of public school performance. per-formance. Advocates of this accountability movement hope to establish tests and guides that will measure educational education-al output or performance and weigh this against the amount am-ount expended to obtain such results. Foundation analysts point out that- total school expenditures expen-ditures in Utah have risen by $190 million, since 1950, an increase of "six and one-half times over the past 21 years. Approximately $157 million or four-fifths of the expendit- ure rise was for current operations. op-erations. In analyzing the reasons for this expenditure Increase the foundation indicatf? ' flia 36 percent of the rise Is accounted ac-counted for ' by enrollment increases and ' the decreased purchasing power of the dollar. dol-lar. The remaining 64 per-CHnt per-CHnt of the expenditure liso is attributed to ther factors such as salary levels, reduced reduc-ed class size, broadened services ser-vices and special programs for students, more supervisory supervis-ory and guidance personnel, and the cost of social . security secur-ity and retirement programs for teachers. Recently, there has been a leveling off in Utah school enrollments. This is primarily primari-ly the result of a decline in birth rates that occurred in the mid-1960's. During the' past- two r three years, however, how-ever, there has been a renewed re-newed upsurge in Utah's birth . rate. Foundation analysts ana-lysts warn that this sudden increase in Utah births probably prob-ably -will result In another rise in Utah school enrollments enroll-ments during the latter half of the 1970 Jecade. |