Meanwhile, Salt Lake City gets little special assistance from the state other than some extra dollars for disadvantaged students. But the city itself, with a population of just 173,000 residents in 1996, is hemmed in by its suburbs and doesn't crack the list of the top 100 U.S. cities. It is the capital of a state that places a high value on education. Even though Utah usually ranks at or near the bottom in the nation in per-pupil state spending on public schools, the state's students tend to do well on national tests, and the overall state population has much higher levels of educational attainment than national averages. Families in Utah are bigger than average, a reflection of the state's large population of Mormons, whose religion places an especially great emphasis on the traditional family.
School districts face a tough task keeping up with a statewide enrollment that has never declined.
Utah and Salt Lake City have relatively low poverty rates. Read more about the challenges states face in setting policies for urban education. But some 22 percent of the children in Salt Lake City lived in poverty that year. Ms. Robles, the Salt Lake City superintendent, says demographic changes have hit the district quickly since then. Just 21 percent of the district's students were minority-group members in 1984.