Last week the state's top education official, Superintendent
Brad Smith, scandalized more than a few good Utahns by paraphrasing Barry
("Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice") Goldwater in a speech to the Utah Taxpayers
Association. He told the approving audience that state educators, parents and
politicians should just get over their obsession with the fact that our state
generally sits at the bottom of any list measuring per-pupil spending.
