
Written by Sutherland Institute
January 20, 2023
Sutherland Institute supports HB 215 – Funding for Teacher Salaries and Optional Education Opportunities because it reflects the best of Utah’s policymaking ethic: avoid making a zero-sum game of two important and necessary education policy reforms, and instead seek policy outcomes that serve the common good.
Both parents and teachers endured significant challenges during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – as did children – and HB 215 aids all groups in moving forward from the pandemic. As institutional leaders of families, parents deserve support in their effort to direct the education of their children. HB 215 empowers parents in this regard and properly entrusts them to ensure accountability from schools in the spending of scholarship funds. No one is better positioned or more strongly motivated to ensure that taxpayer funds are spent well in the education of their child than that child’s parent.
As leaders of their classrooms, public school educators deserve respect and support for their efforts to help students learn. The significant boost in teacher compensation in HB 215 moves in this direction, especially for early-career educators for whom an across-the-board pay increase will be more impactful.
National public polling shows that a majority of parents are supportive of both education savings accounts as well as increasing funding for public schools and raising teacher salaries. These objectives need not be mutually exclusive, especially when they are both the prudent next steps for our state.
For additional insights regarding HB 215, see our analysis of the legislation, our discussion of education choice policies nationally, and our recent perspective piece in Deseret News about how the effects of the pandemic call for a policy approach that combines expanding education choice with increasing teacher compensation.
More Insights
Read More
Strengthening education, religious freedom and family – 5 bills that will benefit Utah families
Utah families will now benefit from expanded education options, enhanced religious freedom protections, and more opportunities for children because of proposals Sutherland Institute actively supported during the 2023 general legislative session.
Legislative wrap-up: Education policy’s new pluralism paradigm
Laws that were passed in the 2023 session support educating students using a holistic approach that includes public and private options.
Sutherland Institute and American Enterprise Institute to Co-host FREE Forum in Salt Lake City
Sutherland Institute and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) will be co-hosting FREE Forum Salt Lake City.