For supporters of tuition-tax credits, this may well be the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

Two years ago, then-Gov. Mike Leavitt said he would discuss such a thing only "when we have adequately funded public schools." Considering one of the main points behind the credits is to free money to more adequately fund education, that was the equivalent of saying the state would agree to build new highways only after it had adequately relieved congestion on the existing ones.

It was also, in a state where people like to keep things on a polite basis, a nice way of telling tax-credit proponents to stick it in their ear.

Now, however, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is working with the sponsor to craft the type of bill he can feel comfortable signing. Some traditional opponents are even coming to the table in an effort to at least influence the final version. The moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter is aligning with Mars.

And yet, this isn't likely to be settled neatly and easily once and for all, like some new get-tough bill on drunken driving. In Utah, school choice seems to be on about the same emotional plane as abortion and gay marriage are in some other states.

That much was made plain by the many e-mails and letters you've sent through the years as I've written in favor of either credits or vouchers. It also was made clear by a friend's emotional reaction this week. To him, the very idea of tuition tax credits is an insult to the public educators in his family.

All of which has convinced me that the political taffy pull that takes over some high-profile issues does little more than stretch things way out of proportion. It's time for some dry-eyed observations:

• First, Utah's public schools are not wholesale failures. A new report shows that Utah's public school seniors ranked third nationally last year in terms of those who took and passed advanced placement tests. Add this to a list of other evidence that schools here generally do a good job.

And yet all is not perfect. Some schools do not perform well. And in a wave that seems almost Biblical in proportions, new students (I've seen estimates of around 144,000) are poised to enter an already jam-packed system, straining classrooms and taxpayer wallets.

• Second, a tax credit won't solve the problem of how to deal with this wave. It would, however, alleviate some of the pressure. This is a simple matter of supply and demand. Right now, the demand for public schools is larger than the supply. Allowing choice would increase the supply of schools. But by all predictions I've seen, the number of students expected to take advantage of this choice is extremely small.

• Third, a tax credit is less of a threat to existing public schools than is a charter school. Because charter schools are completely public, each student that opts to enroll in one takes a full per pupil amount of money away from the old school he or she left. Under the current tax-credit proposal, a student from a low-income family would take $3,750 away from a public school by enrolling in a private one. That's still short of the amount it takes to educate a single student in a public school.