CELEBRATING UTAH TEACHERS' STARTING SALARY INCREASE
Education | December 2023 | Stephanie Ott & Jason Brown
Utah recently achieved a milestone in education by raising starting teachers' salaries to $60,000 in eight school districts, potentially mitigating the state's teacher shortage. While current data shows Utah's teacher vacancies have remained steady compared to other states with a 35% increase, concerns arise about the future shortage due to declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs, prompting upcoming surveys to understand student perspectives and encourage more individuals to pursue teaching careers.
GROWTH HAS BEEN UTAH'S LEGACY FOR 176 YEARS
Communiity | July 2023 | Ari Bruening
Gov. Spencer Cox has invited all Utahns to take the Guiding Our Growth survey and, well, help guide our state’s growth. But as we celebrate Pioneer Day this month, we should keep in mind that guiding Utah’s growth — and guiding it well — has been our state’s legacy for the past 176 years.
Concerns about growth seem to have reached a fever pitch. In fact, a 2021 Envision Utah study found, for the first time in a quarter century of this kind of research, that the number of Utahns who thought growth was going to make life worse was greater than the number who thought growth would make things better. Those concerns don’t seem to have disappeared in the 18 months since the study was published.
WE'RE GETTING CLOSER ON TEACHER PAY, BUT ARE WE THERE YET?
Education | March 2023 | Stephanie Ott & Jason Brown
In 2019, the average Utah teacher salary was about $54,000. By 2022, it had gone up to $65,000, a 20 percent increase. Starting teacher salaries grew even more, and, with this last legislative session, the average starting salary for teachers in Utah will be close to $60,000.
This is no accident. In fact, also in 2019, Envision Utah brought together two dozen state, education, community and business leaders to figure out what teacher compensation needed to look like to ensure our students had the best educators possible. Part of the answer was a $60,000 starting salary, and we’ve been making progress towards that goal ever since, but are we there yet?
ENVISION UTAH YOUTH COUNCIL'S RECOMMENDATIONS TO KEEP STUDENTS SAFE DURING EARTHQUAKES
Disaster Resilience | February 2022 | Envision Utah Youth Council
For the last few years, one of the focuses of the Youth Council has been on the dangers many Utah schools would pose to us, as students, if a large earthquake struck along the Wasatch Fault. We have a special interest in the safety of our schools because we spend so much of our time there, both during school hours and after school—studying and learning, playing on basketball and volleyball teams, competing in debate tournaments, putting on plays and musicals, performing in orchestra concerts and on drill teams, hanging out with our friends, and participating in many other activities. We want to know that when we are in school buildings, we are safe, even if a major earthquake strikes.
WHAT “THE BIG ONE” COULD LOOK LIKE AND HOW WE SHOULD PREPARE
Disaster Resilience | August 2021 | Shaela Adams
Utah is due for a big earthquake—the Wasatch Fault has a forty-three percent chance of experiencing a 6.75 or greater magnitude earthquake in the next fifty years, and experts project that such an event would be among the deadliest disasters in our nation’s history.
But, just as the full scope of the COVID-19 pandemic was hard to imagine, so is the timeline and devastation of what that earthquake will actually look like. So, we did it for you.
EFFECTIVE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT REQUIRES MORE THAN A PUBLIC HEARING
Planning | May 2021 | Ari Bruening
Public hearings are the core way cities engage their residents before making decisions. At some level, they’re intended to promote local democracy and deliberative, representative decision-making, but that’s not how it typically plays out. We’ve all seen it too many times: a parade of people taking their turn to speak for three minutes into a microphone, usually to protest some proposed action.
TEACHER PAY IS ABOUT STUDENT SUCCESS
Education | February 2021 | Nain Christopherson
Teacher pay is not just about teachers. Of course, it starts out being about teachers. Like all other professionals, educators deserve to be compensated for their skills and expertise. They should have the resources they need to be successful in their jobs. But the benefits of improving teacher pay extend far beyond teachers’ own finances—all the way to students’ academic performance and even their attitudes about education. If we raise teacher pay, more people—and, importantly, more highly qualified people—will want to become teachers. From there, classroom instruction will improve, and since teachers are the single most impactful factor in a child’s school experience, so will student outcomes.
SOLVING THE TEACHER SHORTAGE WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE
Education | January 2021 | Nain Christopherson
Utah has already been grappling with a teacher shortage for over a decade—but, as with almost everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened the problem. As K–12 schools navigate coronavirus testing, hybrid teaching and learning, and the stress of a global health crisis, teachers are leaving the classroom in even greater numbers than they have in previous years. And with all this stress and uncertainty, it’s likely that fewer and fewer college students might decide to pursue careers in education. At the same time, though, it has become even more critical that our classrooms are led by the best, brightest, and most adaptable people our stateUtah has to offer.
A “UNIQUELY UTAHN” APPROACH TO PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE-THE ORIGINS OF THE ENVISION UTAH PROCESS
PLANNING | JULY 2020 | NATHAN BROWN
Addressing growth is a complicated issue. And Utahns traditionally prefer local autonomy to a “top- down” approach to solving problems. They are, however, eager to collaborate on important issues. It's those factors that led to innovation that would become the foundation for Envision Utah’s 5-step process: a bottom-up, nonpartisan, collaborative decision-making process that engages the public to develop and implement a vision for the future. That process led to the collaboration that created the Quality Growth Strategy 20 years ago.
YOUR QUARANTINE HEALTH ROUTINE
HEALTH | April 2020 | Shaela Adams
Maintaining a healthy routine isn't always easy, and it's especially difficult while in quarantine. With that said, it's critical to our short- and long-term health that we invest the time and effort into finding the routine that works for each of us as individuals while at home. From staying active throughout the day, to eating right, and staying informed, check out the various resources and suggestions for how to find your own quarantine health routine thatn you can stick to while staying safe at home.
RAISING UTAH TEACHER SALARIES WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING
Education | March 2020 | Nain Christopherson & Jason Brown
Last fall, Envision Utah released a set of recommended changes to our school system aimed at ending the teacher shortage and improving student outcomes statewide. The report – “A Vision for Teacher Excellence” – received substantial media coverage, was recommended for inclusion in the governor’s 2020 budget by the Education Excellence Commission and factored into tax reform discussions on Capitol Hill. Its most notable suggestion was that all Utah teacher salaries be raised to an average starting pay of $60,000 and grow to $110,000 by retirement.
ENVISION UTAH'S 2007 INFLUENZA PANDEMIC EXERCISE: 3 TAKEAWAYS THAT CARRY WEIGHT TODAY
Disaster Resilience | March 2020 | envision utah staff
In 2007 Envision Utah facilitated an exercise with business, state, and community leaders to respond to an Influenza Pandemic. It was a frightening scenario to consider, but fast forward 13 years and it’s just as frightening as it is familiar. COVID-19 has reached pandemic status and the number of infected Utahns grows every day. That 2007 exercise wasn’t a perfect preview of what we’re experiencing today, but there are still a few critical takeaways.
WHAT'S YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR 2050?
smart growth | december 2018 | Envision Utah Staff
Over the next two weeks, a whopping 73 percent of adult Utahns will make New Year’s resolutions, making us the most resolution-prone state in the country. That’s not entirely true—in fact we made it up. But 73 percent of Utahns think it’s important to have a plan to accommodate future growth. And isn’t that kind of the same thing?
DENSITY IS A BIG ISSUE LATELY — BUT IT’S NOT A SIMPLE ISSUE
smart growth | July 2018 | Envision Utah Staff
The headlines keep coming: there’s public pushback about some development project because it’s “too dense.” Inevitably, whenever a developer proposes something, one of the first questions is how dense it is. But instead we should be asking how the project is designed. Will it accommodate our growth in a way that will lead to a high quality of life for ourselves and our children?
UTAH'S REAL ESTATE MARKET IS SHIFTING
smart growth | january 2018 | Envision Utah Staff
Think Utahns love single family homes? You might be mistaken, at least in the current marketplace. Envision Utah recently charted building permits across the four-county Wasatch Front, using the Ivory-Boyer Construction Database at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, and the results might surprise you.
UTAH PIONEERS WERE RIGHT: CONNECTED STREETS MAKE HUGE DIFFERENCE FOR TRANSPORTATION
Transportation | july 2017 | Envision Utah Staff
Utahns who traveled to see the solar eclipse this week got a taste of the beauty of our universe. But they also got a serious taste of some not-so-beautiful traffic. Eclipse viewers left Idaho bumper-to-bumper and it got us thinking: How do you solve a problem like traffic?
THERE'S MORE HAPPENING TO CLEAN UTAH'S AIR THAN YOU THINK
air quality | July 2017 | Envision Utah Staff
Utahns love Utah for a lot of reasons. The pollution in the air is not one of them. By far, air quality is the number one thing Utahns dislike about where they live (2014 Utah Values Study, pg. 43). For most of the year, Utah’s air is clean. However, for some periods in the summer and particularly in the winter, pollution levels rise to unacceptable levels in many of our mountain valleys and we see “red air days” that exceed federal standards. So what’s being done to address our poor air quality?
FROM POLLUTED TO PARADISE: THE JORDAN RIVER'S BIG TURNAROUND
smart growth | june 2017 | envision utah staff
For decades, the Jordan River didn’t receive the attention or value that it deserved. In many ways, it was more a dumping ground for polluted water than an amenity. Dredging and straightening altered the river and narrowed its channel, and the invasive vegetation marred the ecosystem. The unkempt banks of the river kept many people away and became a harbor for homeless camps. All that started to change in 2008 when Envision Utah helped bring numerous stakeholders together to form a vision for the river called “Blueprint Jordan River.”
LET'S MAKE SURE UTAH'S HOUSING SHORTAGE DOESN'T BECOME LIKE CALIFORNIA'S
Housing | May 2017 | envision utah staff
Housing prices are skyrocketing in Utah. According to a report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, single-family home prices were up 8.1% last year, with no end in sight to the increases and apartment rents increasing at similar rates. Why? Quite simply, we’re not building enough housing in Utah. The Institute reports that, for the first time in memory, we added more households than housing units. As a result, home builders have almost no unsold inventory, and existing homes stay on the market a very short time. If you’re a homeowner or a real estate agent, you might think that’s a good thing. Think again.