Voters, approve vouchers in November

Webb: Last I heard, Frank was in Pompeii, Italy, trying to research his ancestry among the ruins for some clue as to why he's so obnoxious. (He's having such a great time he may never return.) So that leaves me the opportunity to tackle a hot issue with none of Frank's meddling.

The education voucher question that will be on the election ballot statewide in November is one of the most important public policy questions voters have faced in many years.

At stake here is education quality, teacher salaries, class sizes, expenditures per pupil — and overall taxation levels. This is nothing short of a billion-dollar issue, and it's up to voters to decide.

I am an enormous supporter of Utah's public schools. My children attended public schools, as will my grandchildren. The vast majority of Utah children will always attend public schools. Our public officials should always focus on improving public schools. Private schools, facing competition and market forces, will take care of themselves.

Because I'm a public school advocate, I'm also an enormous voucher supporter. I am absolutely convinced that by every measure Utah's public schools, students, parents, teachers and taxpayers will be much better off if vouchers are approved by voters in November.

Here's why: Utah schools desperately need more funding. We need more money for teacher salaries, for class size reduction, for computers and supplies. We need to spend more money per pupil. Everyone knows that we have more children to educate because of our large families. With my six children (now all graduated from public schools), I'm partly to blame.

But another big reason we're short of public school money is we have relatively few children attending private schools. Utah has about 3 percent of school-age children in private schools compared to 10 to 12 percent in most states. The difference amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.

If we can encourage another 7 to 10 percent of students to attend private schools, while leaving most of the money we would have spent on them in the public school system, that's an enormous financial windfall for public schools.

State Sen. Howard Stephenson likes to say that a voucher really is just a way to get families to raise their hands and volunteer to educate their children for $2,000 (the estimated average voucher amount) instead of $7,500 (the amount we spend per pupil from all revenue sources), leaving $5,500 remaining to educate other children in the public education system. Not a bad deal.