• All candidates in the gubernatorial and attorney general debates signaled support for education choice.
• Between now and election day, candidates ought to elevate education policies like protecting education choice, combatting federal overreach, promoting success sequence in K-12 education and advancing transparency.

Recent election debates, hosted by the Utah Debate Commission, highlighted policies that candidates should elevate through Election Day and address once winners take office.

In education, these include parent-driven education through choice, pushback against federal overreach into Utah’s public schools, upward mobility by teaching kids the impacts of the success sequence, and even trust through transparency.

Parent-driven education via choice

If debate questions reflect public interests, it’s clear that education choice is top of mind. In both the gubernatorial and attorney general debates, candidates were asked about the lawsuit challenging Utah’s universal education choice program. All candidates expressed support for education choice or doubt about the merits of the constitutional claims.

Utahns have grown increasingly familiar with having robust education choice in the state. Then, the pandemic ramped up Utahns’ appetite for publicly funded education choice, resulting in a 2023 poll showing that vouchers – once defeated 20 years ago – had the support of nearly half of all Utahns, more than those who opposed it. Once the Utah Fits All scholarship passed, Utah became one of the first states to offer a universal choice program.

Unlike teacher associations, candidates are especially attuned to general public sentiment on education issues – and they are right to be, since they are seeking to represent them. Luckily, education choice is also simply good policy. It allows parents to drive their child’s education, based on the student’s individual needs. Candidates and elected officials should continue to expand and protect parents’ ability to direct their children’s education through choice programs.

Federal overreach

Pushing back against federal overreach was a theme in both the gubernatorial and attorney general debates, and examples included impacts on state lawmaking, lands, Title IX and canceling student loan debt.

Education is a state and local issue, and most individuals engaging in public service usually know how to express this reality. But public policymakers need to diligently protect this in practice too. It is heartening that Senate and House debates this week didn’t delve into education, since it’s not supposed to be a federal issue. State-level candidates and eventual elected officials ought to do their part in empowering local leaders to be decisionmakers and resisting federal pressure to implement culture-war regulations that do not make sense for schools.

Part of this ethic requires that state leaders avoid overprescribing mandates on local issues from their state positions.

Success sequence

Debates this week did not highlight the success sequence or the value of providing data to students about the financial outcomes of living the success sequence, but candidates and officials ought to advance this issue. Teaching the success sequence gets at the heart of what Utah is heralded for: economic success and a strong family culture. To maintain these strengths in light of a growing population – much of which is coming from outside the state – students need a chance to learn about evidence-based information that teaches them how to avoid poverty.

Transparency

The attorney general debate candidates addressed trust in public offices and how transparency – even proactive transparency – can play a role. While transparency was talked about in relation to a question about calendars of elected officials being public, the principles of transparency apply to public policies broadly.

Trust in public institutions is waning, which means rebuilding trust ought to be a priority issue for all public servants or those aspiring to be. Public schools and educators are being asked to do more than ever, which can be a logistical nightmare for them, overburdening teachers who are already feeling exhausted. However, even worse for schools and educators is a weak relationship between the key partners in education – parents and teachers.

State-level policymakers ought to extend proactive transparency reform to public schools (supported by most Utah likely voters), offering incentives to individual educators – rather than mandates – to be as transparent as possible with parents regarding classroom instructional curriculum, materials, assignments and more.

Setting a standard that public institutions affirmatively offer transparent information can only bolster trust in institutions – trust that we need so badly.

Conclusion

This election season, candidates should continue to pursue education policy that elevates parents, promotes local leadership, provides kids with information about how to avoid poverty, and advances trust through transparency. If so, we are more likely to find that elected officials champion these actions in once in their positions of power.