Vouchers:
On November 6, 2007, voters rejected Special Election-Citizen's State Referendum Number 1 — education vouchers in the state. Below:
- 'No' Vote Certified as Official
- Dixie S. Huefner on why voucher legislation is poor public policy
- League's study of the Pros and Cons of Utah's Education Voucher legislation.
- The Deseret News report on tuitions at Utah private schools.
- The Sutherland Institute on why members of the LDS faith should vote for vouchers.
- Pro-and-con views from the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret Morning News and the Provo Daily Herald.
Vouchers 'no' vote certified as official
By Glen Warchol
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 11/26/2007 02:58:42 PM MST
Results from Nov. 6's school vouchers referendum vote have been certified as official.
About 42 percent of Utah voters turned out to clobber a voucher proposal - 325,000 votes to 198,000, the state board of canvassers declare.
The board, made up of Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, state Treasurer Ed Alter and state Auditor Auston Johnson, certified the referendum tally today.
Had it passed, the voucher program, which squeaked through the Legislature, would have been the most comprehensive in the nation. But opposition, fueled by millions of dollars from teachers' unions around the nation, succeeded in killing vouchers.
Unrelated to the referendum, probably the biggest error of the election occurred in Wayne County, where the county clerk left the state school board race off the ballot. But the total number of registered voters in the county is less than the difference between the number of votes cast for Dixie Allen and Tod Tesar - so the results cannot be challenged.
"Those 2,500 votes in Wayne County just didn't make a difference," said Michael Cragun, the Lt. Governor's deputy chief of staff.
Fun facts from the canvass:
- Six counties - Kane, Miller, Sanpete, Tooele, Box Elder and Piute - had more than 50 percent turnout
- Piute County gets the gold star for best turnout, with nearly 60 percent of registered voters casting ballots.
- Carbon earned a lump of coal for the poorest turnout, with only 27 percent of its 15,000 voters turning up at the polls.
- Salt Lake County saw 39 percent of its 481,000 voters make their mark.
***
Voucher legislation is poor public policy
Dixie S. Huefner
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:10/06/2007 02:06:57 PM MDT
Recent op-ed pieces (Flynn, Witte, /Tribune, /Sept. 30) debated whether Utah's voucher legislation is unconstitutional. Although the arguments are worth understanding, my conclusion is that the judicial outcome is uncertain, both because of ambiguity in the Utah Constitution with respect to what is arguably indirect aid to religious schools and because interpretation of the relevant provisions may well depend on the views of Utah Supreme Court justices.
Although the anti-voucher legal argument is important, it obscures equally or more important arguments:
1) Siphoning off tax dollars to support private school enrollment not only is an inappropriate use of public money but also siphons off support for the public schools by parents who obviously care deeply about their children's education. It leaves a narrower range of families to advocate for strengthening the public schools. If parents unhappy with the challenges in today's public schools vacate those schools in growing numbers, the public school system will weaken over time.
2) The subsidy, from $500 to $3,000, mostly helps families who can afford to pay a significant portion of the private school tuition. Many of the best private schools cost between $10,000-15,000 a year. If vouchers are meant to help those who cannot afford private schools, they significantly limit the private school choices available to low- and
many middle-income families.
3) The provision allocating money to public schools to partially offset the loss of tax dollars for children receiving education vouchers expires after five years.It is unclear which parents want vouchers in order to remove their child or children from the public schools. Some parents may not be comfortable educating their children alongside so many language and cultural minorities. Some may think that their own religious values are being undermined in today's schools.
These are not good reasons to use public money to subsidize private preferences.
Other parents may determine that their child's instructional needs have not been met by the school. They may have a child who is harassed or bullied by other children, or they may prefer smaller class sizes. Certainly, private schools have a role in educating children who are not well-served by their public school. But the selection of another public school is also an option for parents who are seeking a more effective school environment for a particular child. Many excellent public schools exist in Utah. If parents are knowledgeable enough to seek out private education and public money, they are knowledgeable enough to find out how to tap the public school choice options.
Another concern about the voucher legislation is that it will encourage private schools that lack a track record and will not be as instructionally effective as the public schools. Public schools are accountable to the public and must report such matters as drop-out and attendance rates and achievement scores.They must comply with due process protections and equal protection mandates of the U.S. and state constitutions. The voucher legislation exempts private schools from many such requirements while ironically directing public money to those schools. Also, private schools can reject unsuitable applicants, leaving a higher proportion of more difficult children in the public schools - an undesirable result for the already burdened public system.
If all the energy in time and money spent on supporting private school vouchers went to promoting ongoing professional development of educators; better teacher salaries; more effective, research-based teaching methods; reduced class sizes in grades K-3; and even expanded public preschool responsibilities to level the playing field for entering students, we might have an education system that better meets the needs of all our children.
---
* DIXIE S. HUEFNER is professor emeritus of special education and special education law at the University of Utah. ***
Click here to download a pdf of the League's study of the Pros and Cons of Utah's Education Voucher legislation, and the reasons why the League urges a vote against vouchers.
***
The Deseret News has researched tuitions at Utah private schools. Here is their report:
***
If you are interested in learning why Paul Mero, of the conservative think tank, the Sutherland Institute, believes members of the LDS faith should vote for vouchers, read Vouchers, Vows and Vexations.
*** Following are pro-and-con views from the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret Morning News and the Provo Daily Herald:
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527. voucher proponent Richard Eyre and opponent Pat Rusk. Today: based on their respective arguments, how I intend to vote on Nov. 6.
© 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved
Friday, October 19, 2007
Ex-UEA leader fights to save public schools
By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News
Several years ago when she taught elementary school in Park City, well before she served her two terms as president of the Utah Education Association, Pat Rusk had a student who kept missing class.
When she summoned the boy's parents to tell them he was slipping behind because of his frequent absences, they explained that their son was skiing a lot because he wanted to win a gold medal in the Olympics.
"Well, then," she said, "I hope he can read the medal."
The story serves as a suitable introduction for a person who is at the front of the vanguard against private school vouchers.
Ms. Rusk sticks up for the kids.
And especially for those kids no one else might be sticking up for.
Her concern isn't with private schools per se, she says. Let them educate whomever chooses the non-public path.
Her concern is with any kind of private school aid that would help reduce America's public school system to second-class status.
"My biggest fear is that a voucher system doesn't really offer reform, just a way out," she says. "It creates a situation where eventually our public schools become a default. I don't want to see that happen here, where public schools are only for somebody else's kids."
As a case in point -- make that four cases in point -- the career educator, who concluded a four-year presidency of the UEA in 2006, talks about her family hosting foreign exchange students through the years from Poland, Spain, France and Brazil.
"Each one had been in a private school system," she says. "Where they came from, no one goes to public school."
The thought of that happening here -- in the land of the free education and the home of those who protect it -- leaves her the opposite of speechless. After helping lead the petition drive last spring that got the voucher issue on the ballot, she has been as vocal as a third-grader at recess in explaining why vouchers should be defeated.
"For me personally, it's about making sure kids, all kids, have someone sticking up for them," she says in explaining why she has chosen to speak out so passionately and independently. "Our public schools are the one place where everyone has a chance, where you can make something of yourself, even if there's no one else out there to help you. In America that's what we promise. Everyone gets to be educated. All you have to do is show up and try, and it's yours. We guarantee that, don't we?
"But when we start giving out vouchers," she continues, "it's no longer an equal playing field."
Giving tax dollars in the form of vouchers to private schools would only widen the gap for the disadvantaged.
She scoffs when voucher proponents, most of them wealthy and privileged, compare their crusade to the civil-rights movement.
"When did we have a civil-rights movement paid for by billionaires?" she asks.
Rusk takes care to point out that it's not the kids whose parents are concerned about getting them into the right schools -- public or private -- that Rusk is worrying over. Nor is it the kids whose parents make sure they do their homework and go to class.
It's the ones who don't have parents like that.
"I hear people on the other side say it's all about parental choice," she says. "Do you trust parents or don't you? I wish it were that simple.
"Public schools are not perfect, and people have always had the private school choice," she says. "We've educated children side by side for years. There's always been competition from private schools, and I'm fine with that.
"But the proposed voucher law doesn't change any of that. It gives no new choices. It just says that taxpayers will now pay for that choice."
Rusk takes solace in the fact that all previous efforts to pass similar legislation in other areas of the nation have failed. "They've never won anywhere when put to a vote of the people," she says. "Not so far."
She shudders to think the trend could end in the state where she's taught and been a significant part of the teachers union and students' lives for more than 25 years.
"They say it's going to help all these low-income kids, but it's an empty promise," Rusk says. "Maybe 50 will say vouchers changed their lives. But what about the rest?"
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
*** Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Vouchers a win-win, Eyre says
By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News
Richard Eyre is nothing if not a family man.
He and his wife, Linda, have not only raised nine children, they've helped raise the rest of ours. When they're not lecturing around the world about parenting they're writing books about it or talking to Oprah. When Ronald Reagan wanted directors for a national conference on families, he called Salt Lake City and asked for the Eyres. Richard also served on Reagan's national advisory panel for financing public education.
The Eyres' book, "Teaching Your Children Values," was the first parenting book to be a No. 1 best-seller since Dr. Spock in the 1950s. Their Web site, www.valuesparenting.com, has more than 100,000 subscribers worldwide.
A stronger advocate for raising kids right you could not find.
And Richard Eyre is all for private school vouchers.
Not because he has any stake in private schools. He doesn't own one, doesn't have stock in one and doesn't have a history with one. Not one of the nine Eyre kids went to a private school.
But because of the increased power vouchers will give to parents.
If vouchers become law, "The vast majority of parents will just leave their kids where they are, in the public schools, just like Linda and I did with all of our kids," says Eyre. "But when a child needs something that may not be available in the public school, vouchers give parents another option.
"Wealthy parents already have the private option," he continues. "But poorer families do not. With a $3,000 voucher, a lower-income parent becomes a customer. Even thinking about the possibility, and having the option, will make parents more involved."
To Eyre, vouchers present a rare win-win-win-win-win situation. Public schools, private schools, parents, kids, teachers -- everybody wins. It's why he's asked to address the teachers' convention later this month. Presented objectively, he believes public school teachers will see the light, too.
"Look," says Eyre, "we already have a voucher program in higher education. We have Pell grants and all sorts of other kinds of government aid. And those can go to a private or a public institution. There is no distinction made, and colleges compete vigorously side by side. Consequently, our higher education system is the envy of the world. That's not true in our public schools."
Vouchers, says Eyre, would make public schools less crowded and more fiscally fit.
"We spend over $7,000 tax dollars per pupil per year in our public school system, the lowest of any state in the country. And every time a family makes a decision to use a voucher to move a child into a private school, the class size goes down and the amount of money for each of the students left goes up.
"I like to explain it with Oreo cookies: say you have 30 little stacks of Oreos -- seven cookies in each stack -- representing a typical Utah class of 30 students and the $7,000 we spend on each of them each year. Now let's say that the fairly wealthy parents of one of those students decides to take their $500 voucher (half a cookie, the size of the smallest voucher) and send that child to a private school. The class size drops to 29 and the 6 1/2 cookies that the departing student left behind are still in that classroom, to spend on more books or materials, or on more pay for the teacher. Now let's say that another family, a poorer one, decides to use its $3,000 voucher (three cookies, the size of the largest voucher) to send its child to a private school. The public school class size drops to 28 and four cookies ($4,000) stay behind.
"Think about that. Two less stacks of cookies -- two less kids in the classroom -- but 10 1/2 cookies to put on the 28 stacks that are left -- $10,500 extra dollars to spend on the kids that stay in that public school.
"Now the teachers' union, whose job is to keep the status quo and protect the jobs of even the worst teachers, will try to create confusion about where that leftover money will go, but the simple fact is that the public schools will have more money per pupil every time a family uses a voucher.
"The NEA (National Education Association) is sending the UEA (Utah Education Association) $3 million to try to create a smokescreen of doubts, saying the voucher bill is flawed and full of loopholes. In fact, it is a great bill, agreed to by our Senate, our House and our governor.
"I believe, passionately, that parents are the stewards over their children and they know, far better than a bureaucratic school system or a teachers' union, what is best for each of their kids," Eyre concludes. "If parents and teachers get the facts, vouchers will pass on Nov. 6."
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
*** Yay or nay to vouchers? I vote ...
By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News
Published: October 21, 2007
Columnist's note: In three weeks, Utahns will vote on one of the most debated, polarizing issues in state history: private school tax vouchers. My past two columns have presented points-of-view from voucher proponent Richard Eyre and opponent Pat Rusk. Today: based on their respective arguments, how I intend to vote on Nov. 6. First, I would like to thank Richard Eyre and Pat Rusk for talking to me about vouchers. I couldn't have picked smarter, more personable or persuasive advocates. When each of them finished talking, I was ready to bust through the locker room wall.
If I were running for office or in charge of a large company, I'd want to be, well, them. I'd trust either one to raise and educate anyone's children, mine included.
And yet, for all their similar fine leadership qualities and an obvious shared concern for education, they could not come from more divergent perches when it comes to vouchers.
Eyre, who thinks vouchers are a really good idea, sees the issue from outside the public school classroom looking in.
Rusk, on the other hand, who thinks vouchers are a really bad idea, sees the issue from inside the classroom looking out.
One speaks for the parents, one speaks for the kids.
From where I stand, those polar opposite viewpoints synthesize the voucher debate into a recognizable either-or question that I can get my hands, if not my mind, around: Should education of our children be primarily up to the private sector, which means essentially parents, or should it be primarily up to a public system, which means essentially the government?
Vouchers are a step -- a rather big step -- toward privatizing education.
Is that a good thing or is that a not good thing?
I don't know the answer to such a question, but I do think that would be a more fair question at the ballot box, rather than veiling the debate in a voucher cloud.
Maybe the Founding Fathers got it wrong. Maybe education should have never gone public in the first place. Who is to say that "education" belongs alongside life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right? Why must we guarantee education to all? We don't do the same when it comes to, say, health care.
Maybe the American tradition of a public education is as myopic and misguided as us not using the metric system and treating soccer like a minor sport.
Then again, it may be that the Founding Fathers got it right. Maybe the very backbone of America is steeled by the notion that we are all entitled equally to the same educational opportunities and no one, not in the USA of George Washington and George W. Bush and everyone in between, gets left behind. Maybe the best deterrent to misuse of power and privilege is a well-educated citizenry across the board.
It seems to me the only way to absolutely answer the private-public debate is to try one system and then the other and see which one worked best.
But attempting to answer, or obfuscate, that question by compromising what is already in place -- a guaranteed public education for all system that has been in effect for over 200 years -- seems as subversive as it is unfair.
In the end, it wasn't an answer from either Eyre or Rusk that made up my mind on vouchers. It was two questions posed by Rusk, who asked: "If this is really about the free market, if that's what's going to make things better, then why are we offering government subsidies to open the free market? If you don't like government programs, why would you want to start this new government program of vouchers?"
On vouchers, put me down as a no.
***
Vouchers: The debate continues
Voucher laws mean more money and fewer students for public schools
Supporting vouchers does not compromise one's support of public schools
By Galey Colosimo
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:10/20/2007 11:04:06 AM MDT
Referendum 1, known as the voucher law, asks us to vote for or against a law that gives families, particularly poor families, the right to use a government voucher to help them afford a private school for their children.
The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City supports increased funding for public schools and the voucher law and encourages voters to agree that this position will be a victory for all families.
Voucher opponents argue that the new law is too expensive and will leave little money for public schools to educate the anticipated swell of new students. National research on established choice programs has shown all of them to be at least fiscally neutral and the vast majority (10 of 12 studied) to be a cost savings.
These choice programs relieve public schools of the obligation to educate a student while at the same time keeping the majority of the money for that student in the public school. Where choice programs have been implemented there has been no tendency to slow the growth of funds to public schools. Utah's carefully crafted voucher law means more money and fewer students for public schools while providing more families the chance at a private education.
Other opponents say the law will increase segregation in our schools. A number of studies comparing segregation in public and private schools, in the context of choice programs, found that private schools in general and especially those participating in voucher programs are much less segregated than public schools. This makes sense because public school demographics are based on where students of a similar group live.
Many claim that the new law lacks accountability for private schools but again the national research provides a calming counterweight. A meta-analysis that reviewed the major research conducted on the existing choice programs revealed that these programs lead to improved academic achievement, especially among African American students; promote positive results for the public schools affected by the voucher; and lead to higher levels of both parent and student satisfaction.
Utah's voucher law requires accountability but in addition, parents who choose a school, will demand accountability from the school to offer a program that meets their needs. Otherwise, parents will remove their children from the school.
Those who oppose the new law discount the importance of "choice" as a motivating factor in school improvement. In a study of public charter schools, these teachers reported an 82 percent rate of overall job satisfaction, which is twice as high as teachers in private schools and more than three times as high as public schools.
These results suggest that teachers' ability to choose their schools positively affects their experience at school. The same can be said of families who choose their schools. The empirical evidence supports what we all know to be true - people want the freedom to choose their destiny and this law would encourage this fundamental human aspiration.
In Utah, our citizens should salute our public schools. They achieve results beyond their funding. But a reading of the research shows that supporting vouchers does not compromise one's support of public schools. We encourage all citizens to support public education and vote for Referendum 1 as the best way to support Utah's schoolchildren.
* GALEY COLOSIMO is the principal of Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper.
*** Cookies and class sizes? Unmasking the myth of voucher cost savings
By Kay McIff
Article Last Updated: 10/20/2007 11:04:06 AM MDT
The voucher debate has produced widely divergent and sometimes questionable claims. Here follows an effort to help voters sort the fluff from the facts and unmask at least one faulty claim.
A recent pro-voucher television commercial featuring Oreo cookies is clever but misleading. It has been embraced by some without adequate analysis. It assumes that all vouchers would be used by students who switch from public schools, leaving money behind. It argues that this would result in more money for public schools and smaller class sizes. I wish it were true.
The problem is that the commercial wholly disregards existing private school students who do not now receive public funds. To avoid immediate financial strain in education funding, the voucher law provides that these students, projected to exceed 23,000, would be phased in over a period of 13 years.
This fact alone speaks volumes about the anticipated negative financial impact from the voucher program. In reality, it would require a major infusion of new taxpayer dollars with no offsetting savings and no reduction of class sizes in public schools..
What is the financial bottom line? The Legislative Fiscal Analyst has written an impartial analysis contained in the Voter Information Pamphlet. Read it. Study it. In this war of words, it is the one safe harbor. It has been written in response to statutory duty. The analyst is nonpartisan and has the job of helping voters sort out the truth.
The impartial analysis, found on Page 5 of the pamphlet, concludes that by the 13th year, when all existing private school students qualify, vouchers would cost Utah taxpayers $71 million annually while only saving between $11 million and $28 million.
Any thoughtful reader should conclude that this does not bode well for public schools and Utah taxpayers. If you do the math, the shortfall is somewhere between $43 million and $60 million annually. Sorry for the pun, but that's a lot of Oreos.
The low savings ($11 million) is based on state funding of about $3,100 per student per year. This largely goes to pay teacher salaries. The high savings ($28 million) includes all other expenditures which are funded principally by local taxes and federal grants. It brings the statewide average per-student cost to about $7,600 annually.
The high-savings figure assumes a school can cut costs by $7,600 every time a student leaves. That simply can't happen in most school districts in the state. Rural school districts and urban districts with modest growth or flat enrollment would be particularly hard hit.
If one or two students from every class left with a voucher, the overall operation of the school and its fixed costs of doing business would change very little. Bond payments, administration costs, school bus routes and attendant transportation costs, utility expenses and maintenance would tend to remain relatively constant.
These facts make the low-savings estimate more realistic for the overwhelming majority of Utah school districts.
If we really want smaller class sizes in Utah, they're not likely to result from the inefficiency of funding a second education system that the impartial analysis estimates will cost $43 million to $60 million more annually than it will save.
* KAY MCIFF, R-Richfield, is a member of the Utah House.
***
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Daily Herald
TWO VIEWS: Bramble vs. Dmitrich on vouchers
.
On Nov. 6, Utah voters will decide what has become one of the most contentious issues in recent years -- whether private school vouchers should be available to relieve state finances and assist parents whose children would do better outside the public school system; or whether Utah should to stick exclusively with the public school system, where the largest number of students are found. Two senators -- a Republican and a Democrat -- give their views.
FOR:
Vouchers will help alleviate a financial shock that is heading toward Utah
Sen. Curt Bramble
There are three simple words that summarize why the legislature passed the voucher bill this year: competition, accountability and finances. The first two are important; the third is crucial.
Introducing competition into our education system will help children, parents and teachers. Accountability is enhanced when parents have a choice and a school becomes responsive to the expectations of parents who have alternatives.
But many legislators are concerned that voters are about to make a decision on the new voucher law without considering one of the most important pieces of information that drove our decision to adopt it. Utah's finances are a hugely important part of this debate.
There has been very little public discussion of what is perhaps the most significant challenge facing public education in the next 10 years: a massive increase in student population.
An unprecedented expansion of school age students in Utah has begun. From 1995 to 2005 we had an increase in enrollment of 34,423 students. Starting in 2005 we project enrollment over 10 years will grow by 154,752 students. That is a staggering 450 percent increase.
Right now, Utah has the largest school-age population per household of any state. That is partly because we have larger families, with 50 percent more people per household than the national average. And the Legislature is sometimes criticized for not providing enough money for schools on a per-pupil basis. In per-pupil spending, we're on the low end of the nation.
However, it's important to keep such financial criticisms in perspective. If Utah's household size were adjusted to the national average -- with our current level of spending on schools -- we would find ourselves in the middle of the list nationally, with per pupil spending 20 percent higher.
While we don't expect our family sizes to decrease, it's not hard to see what a 450 percent increase in student population is going to do to public education.
In the last several years, the legislature has funded education at unprecedented levels and we will continue to do so. However, our projections show that when the increase in student population is factored in, even with unprecedented increases in state funding for education, our dollars spent per student will remain flat. Most of our funding increases are swallowed up in simply maintaining today's level of funding per student.
The obvious solution is to increase taxes. If our goal is to maintain per student spending increases that we have enjoyed over the last decade, we would have to triple education taxes in Utah. That means tripling our state income tax.
Income tax revenues fund teacher salaries, supplies and other operational costs -- but you have to build the schools first.
Roughly 55 percent of your property tax goes to school construction. Now assume you've got 150,000 more kids in schools than before. You're going to need to build schools to house them at a cost of about $20,000 per student. Do the math. It amounts to billions in new property taxes to build the schools.
One way to avoid higher income and property taxes is to offer parents the option to have their children move into the private sector and take some pressure off our public schools. That's what the voucher plan is all about.
If parents feel that a private school would be a better option for their child, that child could be taken out of the public system to make room for growth. The departure would immediately reduce class size, relieve the taxpayers of most of the cost of educating that child and increase the amount of money available to the children who stay in the public schools.
Instant class size reduction means more money per student.
When a child leaves public schools, the money attached to that child will stay in the local district for five years. After that, ALL of the money goes into the state's public education fund where it stays in perpetuity and will never be taken out of public education. I know many people have heard reports to the contrary. Those reports are simply wrong.
The coming tsunami of new students is a critical issue, yet it has been virtually absent in the public debate over vouchers. The growth wave is one of the most important considerations for taxpayers, especially property tax payers.
As you can see, the challenges we face are tremendous. Vouchers alone will not solve the problem, but they are a very important part of the solution.
Take away innovative solutions like vouchers, and we are left with a choice between two poor options: 1. Learn to live with dramatically low spending per pupil; or 2. Significantly increase income and property taxes. To me, neither of those options is acceptable.
Taxpayers who have done the math will not only vote to keep the voucher option on the table, but they will be actively involved in finding additional ways to make sure each Utah child receives the education that is best for his or her needs.
The voucher program costs very little. The statute prohibits discrimination. And it protects the intellectual lives of individual young people who won't be sacrificed in a one-size-fits-all system.
• Curt Bramble is Utah Senate Majority Leader and a certified public accountant. He is a Republican from Provo.
AGAINST:
No guarantee that promised benefits will actually come to pass for Utah
Sen. Mike Dmitrich
On Nov. 6, voters in Utah will vote for or against the implementation of H.B. 148, Education Vouchers, passed by the Legislature in February. H.B. 148 establishes a voucher program to funnel taxpayer dollars to private schools. The amount of a voucher ranges from $500 to $3,000, depending on family income and size. Families at every income level are eligible.
Choice is the nucleus of the voucher program. Parents can choose to send their child to a private school and use the voucher to offset the cost. In actuality, if the voucher law is implemented, parents will not be making the choice -- private schools will be making the choice. Private schools will exercise their prerogative to accept or reject students according to their subjective criteria.
Fewer than half of Utah's counties have private schools in their communities. Rural legislators who voted for the voucher program have done a disservice to their constituency. Private school is not an option in their districts, and therefore, the voucher program is not applicable to rural Utah.
Prior to voting Nov. 6, please read the Impartial Analysis of Referendum 1 in the Voter Information Pamphlet. If you are a newspaper subscriber, you should have received a copy with your newspaper within the past two weeks. You should have also received one in the mail. If you do not have a copy of the pamphlet, they are available at public libraries and in all county offices. The entire pamphlet can be viewed online at www.utah.gov/ltgovernor (click on the red arrow at the upper left). You can also call Lt. Governor Gary Herbert's office at 801-538-1041, and one will be mailed to you.
During the first five years, the taxpayer will pay the cost of the voucher to the private school from the General Fund and a portion of the per-student state funding to the school district from the Uniform School Fund for each student who accepts a voucher. The Legislative Fiscal Analyst estimates the total cumulative General Fund cost to be $429 million just for the vouchers for years 1-13 (when the voucher program is fully implemented). A tax dollar is a tax dollar, and it is nave to presume that citizens will feel no impact by funding vouchers from the General Fund. Voucher proponents erroneously assert that the implementation of vouchers will bring savings to our public schools. Read the Impartial Analysis carefully and you will see that costs will exceed savings.
Voucher proponents assert that the implementation of vouchers will reduce class size. There is no guarantee this will happen. Even though some students may leave the public school system, fixed costs remain unchanged. There are still buildings to construct and maintain, teachers and staff to pay, utilities to pay, supplies to purchase, etc. If enrollment decreases by a class size, a teacher may be terminated and the students redistributed among a fewer number of teachers -- which may result in even larger class sizes.
A typical request for an appropriation of state funds entails a grueling process of accountability before, during and after the monies are appropriated. I am wondering why taxpayers would vote to forgo accountability for their tax dollars by giving a blank check to private schools where there will be essentially no oversight of monies spent.
The public school system is exactly that -- education for the public -- an opportunity for every school-age child to have a quality education. Utah is a public school state; 96 percent of Utah's children attend public school. The core issue is whether or not it is in the best interest of our public education system to subsidize private schools. In a state with the lowest per-pupil expenditure in the nation, it makes sense to spend our limited resources for the benefit of the 96 percent. I urge you to vote against Referendum 1 on Nov. 6.
• Mike Dmitrich is the Utah Senate Minority Leader. He is a Democrat from Price.
|
