Essay Transcript: October 19, 2000
By Mia Provenzano

KAT SNOW: Education is the big issue of this campaign season, both in Utah and on the national scene. Gubernatorial candidates Bill Orton and Mike Leavitt are promising smaller class sizes, better teacher pay, and better textbooks in a state with notoriously large classes and inadequate numbers of outdated textbooks. KUER Youth Election Fellow Mia Provenzano says that's fine talk, but today's politicians don't know what it's like to depend on a Utah education for their future.

PROVENZANO: Want to talk about unemployment? Let's talk about education. Want to talk about a diminishing middle class? Let's talk about education. Want to talk about a future with a rising economy? Let's talk about education. In fact, let's not just talk about it, maybe its time we re-evaluate our priorities.

Ironically, politicians seem to be shocked by the revelation that our school system is currently on its way down the porcelain throne. At the Presidential debates, Vice President Gore cited a student who told him her class was 36 people big. Big deal. West High's calculus teacher, Mr. Sakashita, has had classes of 48. Chemistry teacher Mr. Madden has to seat kids on counters intended for lab experiments. Understaffing is common practice...not to mention underpayment.

In other countries the teacher is a revered community figure. Not quite so in Utah. Maybe that's because kids simply don't aspire to be teachers anymore. Let's see, they work all day, then go home and grade all the papers, thanks to a new law saying that students and aids aren't allowed to help. A teacher's career might consist of sticking around only for the sake of paying off student loans from an education wasted on kids who need baby-sitters. Wow. I want to be a teacher now.

Although I imagine that's not what teachers have in mind, that's the way the system is set up for them. How can students be expected to respect teachers when it seems that lawmakers refuse to do it themselves? Remember the teacher's strike last year? Then Senate President Lane Beattie dismissed it as "the mentality of some emotionally misguided individuals." Representative David Zolman called the strike was illegal and recommended that teachers be "sent to the principal's office for misbehavior." Ain't it grand to see such maturity in our leaders? Maybe they didn't understand that teachers were not only protesting for decent pay for themselves, but for decent funding for students.

No wonder we can afford to host the Olympics! Just think of all the money we save on education alone! Utah is more than $2,000 per student per year behind the national average, and as the national average rises, Utah chases it, panting and sweating, but always just as far behind.

In my opinion that's, well, horse puckey. And as a student myself, I think my opinion is pretty valid.

Politicians like to talk a lot about improving education, but I don't believe the presidential candidates any more than local candidates. Especially since recent Republicans have been wafting the sticky-sweet smell of tax cuts our way. Heeere voter, voter, voter, do you want a treaty, weaty? No, that's not fair of me. I take it back. I'm sure they can figure out a way to cut taxes and save education, Medicare, and Social Security, from their unfortunate doom. But then, what do I know. I'm just a student. A student who can't vote...yet.

SNOW: Mia Provenzano is a Junior at West High School in Salt Lake City. Her essay is part of the KUER Youth Election Project.

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