Utahns envision education as the key to improving their quality of life and creating better communities for themselves and for future generations.
52,000 Utahns have shared their vision for the future—and they want everyone to get a great education. Utahns recognize that a high-quality education is fundamentally important not only for themselves and their children but also for their communities and the state as a whole.
The good news is there are things we can do to improve education in Utah.
Following the Your Utah, Your Future initiative, Envision Utah made education one of the top priorities in our work. For the last six years, Envision Utah has facilitated an Education Steering Committee to help lead the way in making the Your Utah, Your Future vision a reality. The steering committee includes Utah’s top education and civic leaders, researchers, activists, technical experts, and other influential members of the community.
PATHS TO SUCCEESS
Envision Utah has identified two paths we must take as a state to improve education. Our Early Childhood Education campaign focuses on how individuals and families can enable children’s success, and our Utah Teacher Initiative campaign focuses on what we can do as a larger community to support education.
To learn more about our education project, check out Education About Page →
HIGH SCHOOL ONLINE SURVEY
One of our goals at Envision Utah is to encourage more Utah students to pursue some level of education after high school. In the summer of 2023, we offered a survey for high school students that will help us better understand the factors that influence students’ post-high school decisions so we can better encourage or facilitate greater post-secondary achievement.
We plan to share our findings in a disaggregated summary report. The responses will, of course, be anonymous.
Click HERE to learn about the results of this study.
A VISION FOR TEACHER EXCELLENCE
Our education staff worked with a task force of Utah’s most influential minds in education, business, and policy to tackle an important unanswered question: in Utah's current market, how do we need to compensate teachers in order to attract our best and brightest into the profession—and keep them in the classroom long-term? Together we’ve answered that question.
THE UTAH TEACHER INITIATIVE
We’re suffering from a major teacher shortage. Part of the problem is that Utah students aren’t choosing to become teachers.
Learn more about why students aren’t considering teaching as a career ➝
Utah teachers work hard for our kids, and they deserve our support. That means making their compensation more competitive, creating more opportunities for career advancement, and guaranteeing new teachers adequate mentorship, to name a few. Adjustments like these, in addition to elevating the public perception of educational professions, will do wonders to build a diverse, high-quality teacher workforce across the state, and Utah kids will reap the benefits.
When we work to strengthen and support our teachers, we'll retain great educators at higher rates and encourage Utah's best and brightest students to join them.
We are researching WHY Utah students aren’t choosing teaching professions, by surveying current college students to find out what their thoughts are about teaching.
Click HERE to participate in our survey
We want to help Utahns understand what we can do together, to improve education. Explore the videos below to learn more about My Education, Our Future.