“On Tuesday, Utahns will vote on whether to proceed with a statewide voucher program enacted in February,” editorializes the Wall Street Journal this morning. “The plan passed both houses of Utah’s legislature after a rough-and-tumble debate, and was signed by Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. But the teachers union immediately launched a ballot initiative to overturn the law and succeeded in blocking it from taking effect prior to Tuesday’s vote.”
Conservative columnist George Will wrote last week that tomorrow’s balloting on this issue will be “more important to the nation than most of next year’s elections will be.” And it’s hard to argue with that assessment.
If a statewide voucher program is approved by Utah citizens tomorrow, it could well mark the beginning of the end of the government monopoly on education as we know it. So naturally the teachers union is pulling out all the stops - including outright lying about the program - to stop school choice, no matter how many students’ futures need to be sacrificed to protect their God-given right to provide sub-standard education.
“The opponents have raised a bundle to disseminate their predictions of doom, including more than $3 million from status quo headquarters, the National Education Association,” notes the WSJ. “One ad featured the ‘Utah teacher of the year’ claiming that vouchers ‘take resources away from public schools.’ In fact, the law provides only up to $3,000 per child toward private school tuition, depending on family income, and the voucher money comes from the state’s general fund, not the education budget.
“The average voucher will cost $2,000,” continues the Journal, “but the state now spends $7,500 per student. The public schools get to pocket the difference, $5,500, without an obligation to provide any services. So the more parents choose vouchers, the higher per-student spending will rise in the public schools.” The reality of the program, as Will points out, is that “Utah’s vouchers will increase per-pupil spending and will lower class sizes in public schools.”
Who could be against that? Other than the teachers union, I mean.
Will concludes that Utah voters “can strike a reverberating blow against the idea that education should remain the most important sector of American life shielded from the improving force of competition.” And as the WSJ concluded, “Halloween is over; Utahns should ignore the horror stories from unions trying to protect themselves.”
Every one of us should be hoping that Utah citizens fire an educational shot that’ll be heard ‘round the world tomorrow.
Posted on November 5th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National
I am happy to read this. I do not reside in Utah, however, I also truly believe that if it passes in Utah, this will be the start to ending the troubles with the public education system. The schools have not been succeeding for some time now. It is crystal clear that something different needs to be done. Creating competition in schools can help some of these issues. It is pure economics, plain and simple. Competition works.
I hope that Utah voters realize the importance for Utah and for the rest of the country to let this pass. A state wide voucher program is just what we need to get the movement going stronger and stronger.
I live in Missouri and there is a lot pf press given towards the idea of school choice. Missouri is facing additional struggles, such as schools being unaccredited and ridiculous lawsuits against the state. I hope Missouri can look to Utah soon and see its own future.
I ran across this site that shows a few of the struggles we are facing:
http://www.moschools.org/
One of the anti-voucher arguments is that since the voucher will only pay for part of the private school tuition, children from poor and minority families won’t be able to benefit from the vouchers. This will result in private schools attended by middle class and rich white children while the public schools have all the poor and minority children, so Utah will see a return to defacto segregation.
Mr. Will addressed this concern in his editorial (families live in certain neighborhoods based on their socio-economic status, so there’s already considerable segregation in public schools). However, the WSJ pointed out an irony in this situation. In today’s editorial, it stated, “Judging from recent polls, the scare campaign is winning. Still, supporters of school choice say that the voucher law could still survive, thanks to expected low turnout among the general population and higher-than-normal turnout among Utah Latinos, who make up roughly 12% of the population. Nonprofit Hispanics for School Choice reports an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort of personal visits and phone calls, and increased attention on Spanish-language radio, and at community events and church services.” Basically, minorities favor this program, but elitist liberal whites claim to know what’s best for everyone else and have no problem telling everyone else how to live their lives.
As John correctly pointed out, “This will result in private schools attended by middle class and rich white children while the public schools have all the poor and minority children.” The minority students in turn will continue to have the low scores and as the affluent (mainly white/asian) leave the schools, the minorities as a percentage will increase as the whole of the public school population, thus test scores will decline significantly. When the scores decline, there will be a call for more money for the schools. Oh what a circular argument…..
I again suggest the following social experiment: Take all the kids form a “successful” school and put them in a “failing” school. I bet dollars to donughts that after one school year, the ‘failing school’ will be ’successful’ and visa versa. Then we can identify what is the underperfomring variable. Then again, maybe no interest group wants to really know the answer.