I’ll confess to being for vouchers. Utah’s public education system complains too much in general and specifically. They don’t do what they really need to do to fight the system: Make it painful for the parents (cancel sports and after school actives outright for starters – see how fast they get more money then). It’s management heavy, bureaucratically slow and when it gets right down to it, they’re just not very good. The sad thing is that there are *so many* shining examples to the contrary – dedicated teachers, outstanding programs and so on. And it pisses me off when the education department holds up these EXCEPTIONS as evidence they’re doing a good job. The fact remains that Utah’s students *on average* cannot compete with most of the rest of the country. For all of our good intentions, our kids are getting left behind.
The schools are over populated, under staffed, and failing federal guidelines which will only lead to more guidelines and federal oversight and regulation, which simply adds up to even less money for the students and teachers at even greater expense. Vouchers take students out of public schools at the personal expense of those who choose it, making public class sizes smaller. Smaller classes means more attention for the kids, and (hopefully) better grades. Better grades means more federal money and less oversight. It many or may not work out, but conflict breeds effort and competition – something sorely missing from Utah’s education department.

Jeremy: Utahns love their public schools because they’re “free” and Utahns are notoriously, er, “frugal”.

I can see that vouchers are a great idea in places where the school systems are absolutly screwed up. I can also see that it isn’t necessary for the state to micro-manage private schools under a voucher plan because the market could do a decent job keeping the hucksters from succeeding.

My biggest concerns are:

A – I don’t think Utahns want to send their kids to private schools because our public system has been doing a great job even when we fund it on the cheap. Utah has a far lower percentage of our students in private schools than nearly any other state in the nation even though there are some relatively cheap private schools available here. This system will end up mainly subsidizing only those who wouldn’t have ever put their kids in public schools in the first place. We don’t need a new entitlement for these people.

B – I don’t think using tax dollars to subsidize FLDS, LDS, Muslim, KKK, or any other philisophically based schools is a good idea. This plan would allow that to happen. I get miffed when the legislators even suggest bringing up the idea of creationism in public school science classes. The idea that I’d have to pay taxes to support an entire class on the topic really leaves me cold.

“Also, why can’t parents who choose to home school their kids get this money? Shouldn’t they be entitled to a tax break if they’re not using the public schools?”

How about those people who don’t have children or never plan to have children? Should they also get a tax break? They’re not using the public schools.

Now I want to vote for vouchers as punishment for campaigning with bad data, and I want to vote against vouchers as punishment for insulting my intelligence…

Good point. I agree.