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SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert, fresh from attending a signing ceremony of an executive order directing a review of national monument designations, also attended the rollout of a directive to analyze federal education rules impacting states.
Herbert's day in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday swirled around a theme he has hammered on during his tenure as governor: Vital issues affecting states are best left for states to govern, not some distant government thousands of miles away.
The executive order signed by President Donald Trump directs Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to take the next 300 days to review — and repeal where necessary — federal education rules where the U.S. Department of Education has overstepped its authority.
"This executive order makes certain that local leaders will be making the decisions about what happens in the classroom. Parents will no longer have to worry about the federal government enacting overreaching mandates or requiring states to adopt a federal curriculum at the expense of local education innovation," said Rob Goad, a senior education department official.
Afterward, Herbert praised the Trump administration's willingness to engage governors and other local leaders on issues that have direct impact on the lives of everyday Americans.
"It has been a real encouraging, and practically a desire, for this administration to have governors at the table," he said.
The governor complained that top-down rules from Washington ignore local and varying needs that are distinct to states and even individual school boards in charge of particular districts.
"Certainly nobody cares more about students' success in Utah than Utahns," Herbert said. "That is part of the big lie, the big misunderstanding, is that somehow people in Washington, D.C., care more. They don't care more; they trust less. They put a lot of strings and mandates and requirements on states."
Goad said the directive focuses only on K-12 public education and will result in a report that will be made public after White House review.
"The department's regulatory review task force will manage this process, among other critical regulatory issues, and work with the public to help determine which regulations are inconsistent with federal law," he said. "One-size-fits-all policies never work, especially for individual students with individual and unique needs. Supporting local control means supporting education better tailored to the students the school serves."
Herbert said the executive order will help get the education system back in the hands of state and local control.
"The closer we are to the student, the better chance we have of getting the best results," he said.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper and president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, said any move toward repealing federal regulations on education mandates to the states is a good one.
"it will enable us to reform education our way, the Utah way, instead of the federal government's," he said.
Stephenson said Utah is among the states in the nation that receive very little in federal education funding, but it is held to the same standards as other states.
"I question whether it is worth the money we are getting," he said.
