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Teachers Finally, almost get what they deserve

Utah teachers are finally getting a decent raise this year, but is it really enough? With local papers like the Deseret Morning News sporting fancy headlines like “some teachers will be getting more than a 10% hike,” some Utahns might get the false impression that the job of paying Utah teachers what their worth is done.

After all a 10% hike sounds great, doesn’t it? But, that isn’t the real or whole story. Teachers in that lofty sounding category will be taking home no more than $2500 extra dollars next fiscal year. Now, remember what your teacher taught you about percentages – yep – that means these teachers are only making a whopping $25,000 per year in the first place. Now, of course $27,500 per year is better, but – it’s hardly a salary the state should be bragging about. [more]

Utah Blog Pick of the Week - Craig Johnson of the Utah Amicus

DEMOCRACY was a winner today!

A few minutes ago, the Utah Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY decided to uphold Utah voters' constitutional right to an authentic referendum process. In an unusually expedited verdict, the court upheld 4-0 that the VOTERS will have the final say on whether to enact a poorly regulated and controversial private school voucher program. The court stated in CRYSTAL CLEAR terms what the rest of us already knew - that HB174 is connected to HB148 and that it cannot stand alone. By voting 'NO' to HB148, citizens can be assured that their vote against private school entitlements will count!
Congratulations to the State Board of Education for showing wisdom and foresight and for standing up to powerful political interests, including an authoritarian Attorney General bent on imposing his will. Congratulations to Carol Lear and Jean Hill at the USOE for providing such excellent legal advice and for advising caution and restraint. You are both a class act and we're lucky to have you around fighting for Utah schoolchildren.
To read the rest of this blog, please follow the link to The Utah Amicus. [more]

Friday is the first of June - how did that happen?

Depot Will be Open to the Public on Sundays
The City of Boise is expanding the hours for the Boise Depot beginning this weekend. Starting June 3rd the Boise Depot, Great Hall and Bell Towers will be open Sundays from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. through September 30th. Admission is free.

Plenty of Summer Classes Are Still Open at BSU
Many summer session core classes and upper-division, graduate and doctoral classes are still available at Boise State University.

More about both these stories ---> [more]

No Means No

In a bold move, the Utah State School Board, in an emergency session voted not to implement the private school voucher law as it currently stands, going against the advice of the State Attorney General and official legal council for the board Mark Shurtleff.

Shurtleff made his opinion clear from the beginning, issuing a letter to the board weeks ago where he all but threatened them to go forward with a seminal version of the bill currently under referendum and awaiting a public vote. All leaning from the Attorney General aside, the board refused to apply the earlier and sketchier voucher bill in an effort to force the issue to the public table sooner rather than later. [more]

Site Aimed at Scholars Worldwide

A new Web-based community for scholars, Pronetos, has debuted this week.

Pronetos, or the "Professors' Network", is the brainchild of Chris Blanchard, a Boise State University graduate student in history. While working as an undergraduate student to publish a paper with social work professor Dan Huff in 2003, he became frustrated by the cumbersome process of peer review and publishing. As a certified Web developer, he knew the internet could solve a lot of his problems. [more]

Mysterious masked teens prompting a recent SWAT team sweep aside, Boulder High School is among the top 200 Best Public High Schools in the nation, according to this year’s Challenge Index published in Newsweek. Boulder High is second-best public high school in Colorado according to the annual report, landing at 168th of the nation's 1,200 schools evaluated; JeffCo’s Lakewood High School edged out Boulder, as it has the past two years, coming in at 146th. In all, 23 Colorado public high schools made this year's top 1200 list, three of which hail from the Boulder Valley School District (Boulder at 168; Fairview High School at 242; Monarch High School at 632). For Boulder High, this year's marks the first time it has broken the top-200 mark. (This year, Colorado also carries the distinct honor of coming in last: Bear Creek High School in Lakewood secured the number 1200 spot on the national list.) [more]

Voucher War

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has come out swinging on the hotly debated private school voucher issue, telling the Utah State Board of Education to implement the voucher program immediately. That is according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Despite widespread, public opposition to the state’s recently passed school voucher legislation, Shurtleff wants to rip off the band-aid, and quick. [more]

Boise's Trial of the 20th Century: Big Bill Haywood

The eyes of the nation were on Boise when “Big Bill” Haywood was tried for the murder of former Gov. Frank Steunenberg. Steunenberg was killed by a bomb just outside his Caldwell home in December 1905, purportedly at the direction of the Western Federation of Miners.

Local historian and former Supreme Court Justice Byron Johnson will speak on “The Trial of Big Bill Haywood in Boise, 1907: The Trial of the Century,” at the May 3 Fettuccine Forum, co-sponsored by Boise State University. The free lecture series is in the Rose Room in the historic Union Block, 718 W. Idaho Street in Boise. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the presentation begins at 5:30 p.m. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog with Irwin Horowitz

Children have a tremendous sense of wonder. They have a never-ending supply of excitement in learning about the natural world in which we live. Or do they? Certainly, their exuberance is practically infectious, but what happens in a few years, when they leave the joy of childhood behind and face the landmines of being a teenager? What happens to that excitement?

Last Friday, two members of the Boise Astronomical Society joined me for an education star party at Jackson Elementary School in Boise. Third grade teachers Sandy Stivison and Maggie Wilson, along with about 30 students and their parents, joined us at sunset under clear skies and [more]

Utah Blog Pick of the Week: From Rob Miller at The Utah Amicus

Chairman Wayne Holland Jr. just made a great point about the voucher referendum petition while being interviewed by The Deseret News.

If Parents for Choice truly believes that a majority of Utahns support vouchers based on their slanted poll, then they should be assisting Utahns for Public Schools to put the issue before the people of Utah, and allow Utahns to put this issue to bed once and for all. Instead it seems that they would rather continue to use Utah as an ongoing laboratory for right wing think tanks.

Unfortunately their rhetoric does not match reality. They claim Utahns support their issue, but at the same time they seem to fear bringing Utah citizens to the ballot box.

For more - jump on over to The Utah Amicus.

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