Another large donor to All Children Matter is the DeVos family, which founded Amway, a household and nutritional products company, campaign finance reports show.

Dick DeVos is a former CEO of the company and a failed candidate for governor of Michigan. He's advocated creating school voucher programs for years and led a ballot initiative that would have allowed vouchers, which was defeated by voters there.

Between 1999 and 2005, DeVos and his relatives spent more than $7 million funding voucher political action committees, including more than $430,000 to All Children Matter, according to records kept by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

Messages left by The Associated Press for DeVos, All Children Matter Executive Director Greg Brock and at Wal-Mart headquarters were not returned.

Nancy Pomeroy, spokeswoman for Parents for Choice in Education, makes no apologies about where her group's funding comes from — which also includes the Utah Association of Realtors and EnergySolutions, operator of the country's largest and only privately owned radioactive-waste dump.

"We're not ashamed," she said. "This is a David and Goliath fight. We're little."

Pomeroy said vouchers' primary opponent, the Utah Education Association, also receives money from out-of-state interests through the National Education Association.

"I think those who live in fat, honking glass houses should not be lobbing stones. Vouchers have come up for the better part of a decade and been shot down by big bucks coming out of state from the NEA. Look at what their agenda is — to kill vouchers," she said.

However, nearly all the UEA's political contributions came from individual donors from Utah and most of those were for less than $100, though the NEA donated $25,000 to the UEA in 2002, state campaign finance reports show.

In the past five years, the UEA has spent about $1 million in campaign expenditures. Parents for Choice in Education has spent about $900,000. It spent no money on campaigns in 2001.

The UEA is Utah's largest teachers union and was one of several education groups that opposed the voucher effort. It, along with other groups, is now trying to get enough votes to repeal the program via referendum.

Marilyn Kofford, education commissioner for the Utah Parent Teacher Association, said getting the law repealed will be a tough battle and also compares the struggle to that of David and Goliath, the Bible's Philistine giant killed by a rock from David's slingshot.

"We fought it for 10 years, and we were successful for 10 years. Then they brought in their big money and helped some of the legislators win," she said. "We are not wealthy people. We are basic, good middle-of-the-road citizens. Somewhere we're going to have to find the resources, but there's no way we will ever raise as much as they do. They will probably outspend us 10-to-1, big time."