By Senator Howard Stephenson and Cody Jenkins

Our nation is at risk. These words introduced Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education’s 1983 “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” The report listed many indicators of failure in education, including that “nearly 40 percent (of 17-year-olds) cannot draw inferences from written material; only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps.” The commission was so alarmed by the state of education in America it said,

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”

The commission called for more homework, extended school years, higher standards for teachers, higher graduation requirements, more rigorous and measurable standards and stiffer requirements for admission to four-year colleges. The national report was followed by state reports calling for implementation of the recommendations and countless other five-year plans for reforming education.

Despite these efforts, American education is no better now than it was in 1983. In 2008, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings published a 25 year follow-up report that stated that “the reading scores of … students born in 1983, who turned 17 in 2000, would have been the same as those of a similar group of students who turned 17 in 1984.” Spellings concluded that because of these new indicators, “If we were ‘at risk’ in 1983, we are at even greater risk now.”

In a documentary aired last November, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria stated, ” … other countries are outsmarting us. On a recent international test, U.S. students ranked only 15th in the world in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math. Overall, the World Economic Forum ranks the quality of our education at 26th.” Zakaria continued, as a country ” … we’ve been outspending most developed countries by a long shot.”

While Utah’s per-pupil spending has consistently been lowest in the nation, the increases in per-student spending in Utah since 1983 have far outpaced inflation. Utah’s total per-student spending was $2,481 in 1983 and grew 222 percent to $8,006 by 2009. Even after adjusting for inflation, total per-student spending rose a whopping 42 percent, demonstrating that Utah legislators and school boards have been generous in increasing per-student funding.

This mediocrity in public education is mirrored in post-secondary education. Complete College America (CCA) reported that higher education nationally has many flaws, including ” … confusing financial aid programs, a culture that rewards enrollment instead of completion and a system too often out of touch with the needs of the today’s college student.”

We know that both our republic and our future depend on an educated citizenry, and unless things change quickly, CCA warns, “for the first time in our history, the current generation of college-age Americans will be less educated than their parents’ generation.” After celebrating college graduation, too many students sadly discover they have $60,000 in student loans and no job in their major. Employers are frustrated as our universities fail to supply the numbers of engineers and scientists they need.

Public and higher education in the U.S. and Utah are seriously off-track. The misalignment between education outcomes and the needs of our economy reveal misallocation of resources far beyond the proportions of Enron, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. But far worse is the negative impact this misalignment has on economic growth. If education attainment matched employer needs for a trained workforce, even modest projections suggest Utah’s wages of $45.5 billion could grow.

Leadership in both public and higher education is institution-centric not student- or market-centric. Local school boards lack the skill sets to manage budgets of as much as $800 million. Governance of higher education is equally dysfunctional as the current incentives cause the State Board of Regents and institutional councils to be more concerned about protecting turf and budgets than empowering students or providing Utah employers with the skills they need.

Neither governors nor legislators are blameless in failing to correct the indictments enumerated here. Governors have no line authority over education in Utah. The Legislature is ultimately responsible for the dysfunctional structure of governance in both public and higher education. New legislative reforms are barely implemented before they are changed, creating a moving target which frustrates even the most patient educators.

We acknowledge the efforts of hard working employees in both public and higher education who are doing their best in a flawed system. Our goal in the upcoming series of articles is not meant to merely criticize, but offer concrete, reachable solutions.

This op-ed was published in the Deseret News on February 17, 2012.