Utah's best and worst...

Today, I won't bore you with snow and skiing. We'll talk about economy, healthcare, environment and education as they all relate to our “Beehive State” as we nickname it. You will see that we're a state of sharp contrasts!

A week or so ago, U.S. News and World Report reported that Utah was ranked number 4 among our 50 states based on metrics like Healthcare, Economy, Infrastructure, Opportunities, Fiscal Stability, Crime, Environment and Education.

This in spite on ranking almost dead last (49th) on environment, because of the terrible inversion and high level of ozone that plague the entire Salt Lake metro area.

In that same report, education is ranked number 12, probably because of Utah's higher education, because from K to 12, our state is ranked dead last (51st), just behind Washington, DC, in education spending for each public school student.

At $7,179, the state maintained its usual last place, according to the 2017 data just published by the U.S. Census Bureau. Utah comes in at roughly half of the national average in per-pupil spending ($12,201) and less than one-third of what New York, the top state is spending ($23,091).

For 2016, Utah's spending was $6,953. Utah also earned last place for teacher salaries, last place for revenue from the federal government and second to last place for total funding. Of the $7,179 spent per student, the data shows that $2,759 of that goes to paying teachers in Utah.

As you can see, skiing and low taxes are much higher priorities in Utah than its cities environment or its kids education...