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Show UEA publishes information booklet Back in 1964 Utah had the highest percentage of men public school teachers among the 50 states, but in the past year the Beehive state had slipped to tenth place in the rankings. Information on that statistic and others dealing with education are included in a new Utah Education Association booklet entitled "How Utah Ranks, 1982-83." UEA President Hurley Hansen said that in 1964-65 Utah ranked first in the nation in the proportion of men teachers, with 41.2 percent. The latest rankings show Utah tenth in that category with 38.85 percent. The UEA publication demonstrated demon-strated again that Utahns pay a relatively high per capita amount for public school (12th highest in the nation at $491.95), yet the state spent less per pupil ($1,814) than any other state in the nation except Alabama. "This seems to be a contradiction, but it really isn't," said Hansen. "It occurs because Utah has the highest birth rate in the nation, and that means families have more children in schools. Children are included in the per capita expenditure, ex-penditure, but they don't pay a lot of taxes." Hansen said the fact that Utah pays the nation's next-to-the-lowest amount of money to educate each student "is a very serious situation, and that many of the problems in our school system arise from that one statistic." Utah still has the largest class sizes, according to the publication. ' It shows that Utah public schools had 24.5 students enrolled per teacher last year, the highest in the nation. Vermont had the lowest class size, 13.88 students per teacher. "This confirms a UEA study made last fall," said UEA Research Director Don Ulmer. Several statistics in the UEA publication confirm that Utah's population is the youngest in the nation. The number of school-aged children (aged 5-17) as a percent of total population was the highest in the nation in 1982-24.13 percent. The national average was 19.61 percent. Only 7.59 percent of Utah's population was over the age of 65 last year, putting the Beehive State next-to-lowest in that ranking. Only Alaska had a lower percentage of over-65 residenls-2.97. Utah had the nation's highest percentage of school-age children for every 100 adults age 21 or older last year - 42.47 . percent. .The national average was 29.07 percent. Once again, the percentage of Utah young people enrolled in public schools was near the top --fourth --fourth among the stales. Utah had 94.7 percent of its school-aged children enrolled in public schools last year. "Many of these statistics impinge on the quality of Utah schools in a very real way," Hansen said. "They tell the story of some of our biggest problems. "The fact that we have the largest classes in the nation cannot help kids' opportunity to learn," he said. "The fact that our per pupil spending is the second lowest in the nation also tells us something. |
