I don't like my driver's license photo. But then again, who does? It's just a one-off snapshot that doesn't show the real me or tell the whole story.

I feel the same way about recent suggestions that public support for tuition tax credits is on the wane in Utah ("Tuition credits bill adjusted," Jan. 8). It just isn't the whole picture.

Five years ago, there wasn't enough public support to get a tuition tax credit or school choice bill out of any legislative committee. Last year, 68 percent of Utahns supported the Carson Smith Scholarship bill, and it passed out of both the Utah House and Senate, only to be vetoed by former Gov. Olene Walker. The public outcry to the veto was so passionate that many believe it cost Walker her job.

Five years ago, school choice was so far down on the public's priority list that it was a non-issue in legislative races. Last year, Scott Matheson made Jon Huntsman's support of school choice the key distinction between them. And Huntsman won by 16 points.

Five years ago, few people thought that a privately funded scholarship program for low-income Utahns to attend private schools would net many applications. Last year, and almost every year since its inception, there were more than a thousand parents on the program's waiting list.

This is the larger picture that Utahns should remember in gauging public support for school choice.

Public opinion surveys are simply snapshots of a particular time and mood. That's why one poll can show public support for school choice at 36 percent, and other polls, like the ones conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide (now Harris Interactive) in 2000 and 2003, can show public support for tuition tax credits at 60 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

Moreover, experience and common sense tell us that public opinion on controversial issues is not cut and dried. It is more nuanced. For example, in the polls conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide, respondents answered a series of questions about tuition tax credits, not just whether they favored them or not. Sixty percent of those polled supported tuition tax credits, but 64 percent thought it was more likely that they would make public schools better; 64 percent thought they would prevent tax increases; and 69 percent thought they would relieve overcrowding in public schools.

Finally, it is critical to remember that how you ask a question is as important as what you ask. The annual national Phi Delta Kappa poll on education has shown declining support for school choice over the past few years. Many researchers and advocates have argued, however, that the word selection used in the poll works to artificially lower support for school choice.

To gauge whether that was true, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation conducted a survey to see how word selection affected public support for school choice. We asked half of the participants the exact same question used in the Phi Delta Kappa poll: "Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?" We asked the other half a more neutral question: "Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose any school, public or private, to attend using public funds?"

The difference in results was astounding. The Friedman Foundation question netted support from 63 percent of Americans, while the other question resulted in support from 41 percent of the public. By changing only a few words, but keeping the meaning the same, support rose more than 20 percent.

The fact is that public support in Utah toward school choice remains remarkably solid, particularly when public opinion is viewed as a whole picture and a rich tapestry, not just a snapshot.

I guess that's why most of us like our family portraits but not our driver's license photo.

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Robert Enlow is executive director of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation.