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November 1, 2007
Clock winding down to major Utah voucher voteThis time next week political and education pundits (including BoardBuzz) will be discussing "what it all means" following Utah's vote on a sweeping private school voucher plan. As we've covered before, all the public polling to date points to another voter rejection of vouchers. Another poll released today, puts it at 56% against and 36% for vouchers.
As we predicted long ago, millions have been spent saturating (rather, over saturating) the state's radio and TV airwaves with pro and con messages. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that more money has been spent ($8.4 million to date) on the voucher campaign than on the last governor's election. For those keeping score, the receipts show the pro-voucher camp spending $4.4 million, while public school supporters have spent $4 million.
Among the controversial ads that money has funded is one featuring the extraordinarily popular governor, a supporter of vouchers who has largely stayed out of the fray ever since voters put the issue on the ballot. While Gov. Huntsman has told voters to educate themselves and vote their conscience, voucher advocates have tried mightily to turn a speech he gave into a made-for-TV endorsement, as the Tribune's Glen Warchol reports. Can it swing enough voters to make a difference?
National coverage has also picked up with the vote just days away. Education author Richard Kahlenberg in today's Politico highlights some of the plan's flaws, correctly noting how often the lack of accountability with vouchers leads to public, including conservative, opposition. He also theorizes a voucher win would end up hurting Republican presidential candidates. BoardBuzz isn't so sure about that one.
Meantime, voucher fan George Will turns in what one might call an obligatory rah rah for the Utah plan in today's Washington Post. No doubt there will be more in the next couple days from the pro-voucher echo chamber. Wouldn't shock us to see a Wall Street Journal editorial before Tuesday.
But beyond citing its genuine national relevance, Will's column reads like little more than an attack on liberals for opposing vouchers. We've seen this movie before. Vouchers go before the voters in...pick a state. It doesn't matter, vouchers lose and not just among Democrats, but Independents and Republicans alike. If only "liberal" voters opposed vouchers then why is Utah, arguably the most conservative state in the nation, seemingly poised to reject vouchers?
Will makes the standard but inaccurate claim that opposing vouchers means eliminating the right of parents to choose their children's school, including a private one. Wrong. Parents already have the right to send their children to a private school, if it will accept them. This is about forcing other taxpayers to pay for that private choice.
The misfires continue when Will asserts that Utah's population growth will be more than the public schools and taxpayers can handle. So the solution is to force taxpayers to fund 2 school systems: one public and one private, the latter being completely unaccountable to taxpayers? Brilliant. Under the plan, any incoming kindergartner, including those who would have attended private school anyway, are eligible for vouchers. So when fully implemented, every private school student in the state would have their tuitions subsidized by taxpayers. If a state can't afford to adequately fund its public school system, it challenges logic to believe it will be able to fund two systems simultaneously.
Seven years ago the voucher movement found itself licking its wounds after California and Michigan voters gave vouchers a 70 - 30 thumping at the ballot box. The lesson they took from that? Don't ask the public what it thinks about vouchers, just ram them through state legislatures, which they did (by one vote) in Utah earlier this year only to see public school supporters gather thousands of signatures to place the issue on the ballot anyway. In education circles, all eyes will be on Utah on Tuesday.
Posted November 1, 2007 6:21 PM | Privatization & Choice
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Comments(1)
Posted by: Israel on November 4, 2007 11:22 AM
With regard to taking YOUR money: How did money contributed by all taxpayers (school taxes come from everyone who owns or rents) become yours? Money collected from all taxpayers should be distributed equitably to all children. No government entity, in a free society, should be dictating to parents how their children should be educated, other than the basics and fundamentals of following the laws of the land and respecting the rights of others, and its questionable as to how well public schools are doing in this regard. Parents are primarily responsible to raise, nourish and educate their children. Government is here to see that no child is left without the best education that an advanced society as ours can offer. Obviously, we don't have this today. Our leaders have been failing us in education, countless lives have been destroyed, and this bloodletting needs to stop now. The good people of Utah, especially those who consider themselves liberal and respect individual rights, and those who consider themselves conservative who believe in individual liberty, will surly vote YES for individual and religious liberty!
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