Sensible at last | The Salt Lake Tribune

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State Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, is a breath of fresh air. Knowing Utah is into geometric population increase without a long-term funding plan for public education, he says, "this is one legislator who believes the time has come for us to find a new method to generate new money for public education" ("It's time to raise taxes for education, transportation, say Utah leaders," Tribune, March 29).

At last, common sense from a legislator, instead of the usual "no stomach for raising taxes" in the face of evidence that, with its lukewarm commitment to K-12, Utah is slipping ever further behind the developed world.

A state with an extraordinary population problem needs extraordinary solutions, not lip service, not the annual patch, patch, patch.

Too many Utahns don't have the faintest idea where Utah has been headed for years, the result of K-12 penury. They don't realize that anti-tax fervor isn't behind Massachusett's success in almost every measure of public education, or Finland's or South Korea's.

In every instance, real success is from putting money into instruction. Behind every failure is a denial of facts.

Osmond has to go out on the stump and change all that. What a challenge!

Ron W. Smith

Providence