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August 7, 2007
Guidance from above? Utah voucher ad yankedAlready? It isn't even September and the pro-voucher lobby that's desperately trying to convince Utah's voters to support school vouchers in a November referendum has already had an embarrassing stumble. The Salt Lake Tribune's Paul Rolly has the scoop on a short-lived radio ad that attempted to use the Book of Mormon to convince Utahns to vote for vouchers.
"The Angel Moroni wants you to support vouchers, according to an ad that has been running on some Utah radio stations. Of course, that might be news to LDS Church officials, who have taken no position on vouchers and frown on people using church scriptures to further a political cause."
After discovering the ad was a tad polarizing, the ad company, Crowell Advertising, pulled it off the air.
Besides the questionable content, the ad, one of four 30-second spots, is for an anonymous client. Rolly did his dead level best to figure out who's paying for the ads and came up with this warm and fuzzy name: Concerned Parents. Because "Advocates for Mom, Apple Pie and America" was already taken? The incident is reminiscent of this great moment in voucher advocacy history.
Just what is it about the voucher lobby that drives them to so often operate in secret, from the out-of-state deep pocketed donors, to misleading ads underwritten by anonymous groups or groups with anonymous members? And then they wonder why taxpayers question the wisdom of their public policy suggestions?
At least Rolly was able to get his phone call answered after tracking down the Concerned Parents organization. "When I called a telephone number attributed to that group, I reached 'Jeremy' who declined to tell me who he was or who was in the organization. He wouldn't even tell me in tongues," Rolly wrote.
On the flip side there's Utahns for Public Schools, a "clandestine operation" that saw fit to list its supporting organizations, their contact information and contact information of coalition supporters in countless Utah counties.
Call us crazy but we tend to think voters may end up placing a little more trust in those willing to go public about who they are and what they want. The vote is still weeks away, though a state poll last month found 57 percent of voters saying they would vote against vouchers, including 45 percent who said they were "very likely" to do so. The typical rule of thumb on ballot initiatives is that if proponents of the idea are under 50 percent early on, they are in trouble. They were at 36 percent in this poll. Voucher advocates claimed then that the numbers would turn in their favor as they explained "the true merits of the voucher program." No word on how the Book of Mormon ad fit into that playbook.
Posted August 7, 2007 2:57 PM | Privatization & Choice
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Comments(2)
Posted by: Derek Monson on August 8, 2007 6:22 PM
This article was a poorly thought out argument using one instance of foolishness by a voucher supporter to smear the entire pro-voucher camp. To go from one isolated incident to generalize to an entire group is logically incoherent and only expresses a sad lack of substiantial thought about the issue from NSBA. It is an abuse of public influence, and an abuse of the aura of authority that public schools hold in Utah, to generalize in this fashion. You are damaging society, particularly those among your membership, more than we can all imagine in the long-run by attempting such a short-run tactic to win the referendum in November. If the voucher policy is so bad, why not just point out the lack of merit that makes it bad? Are you so at a loss for logical, constructive arguments that you have to resort to "Look! They're being secretive! That must mean their policy is bad." If arguments like this are what decides the fate of vouchers in Utah this November, it will be a loss for all concerned because all you will have accomplished is a lack of thoughtful consideration on an issue that could be very influential, for good or bad, for a lot of children in Utah.
Posted by: Don on August 9, 2007 8:53 AM
How about these merits?
Sending our tax dollars to private schools will hurt public schools and other important state programs.
Vouchers will mainly benefit a wealthy few at taxpayer expense.
New private schools may spring up, but there are no accountability standards to ensure that they provide a good quality education.
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