Reader comments
Voucher issue up to voters? Most Utahns say they'd sign referendum petition

As a parent of an Autistic child (who were used as publicity to get this voucher issue rolling), I find myself against a voucher system that no longer evens mentions these children because it has become an issue of those "who have" versus those "who do not".
After listening to the latest ads against the vouchers, I am apalled at the mean spirited half-truths listed by both sides.

I am all for the Vouchers. I come from a small town, went to a public school and I dont think for one moment that the public school is doing the job for the children. I got so far behind in reading and math, and instead of failing me and helping me they PASSED ME! Now I am 26, cant read well, spell well or write well.. I think if all the children could go to private schools it will help them with their future! Please Vote YES for these vouchers.
Voting against vouchers simply locks lower income children into the public school system which maybe failing them. where children from more affluent families will continue to utilize private school education. The real losers are families who cannot afford private school. It really is all about the money.

I remember in high school (I was class of '99), my friends and I would consider and discuss specific failures of the school system we were in. We noted bad teachers without accountability (including one later fired because school computers kept "showing up" in his home and one jailed for sleeping with a student), drug availability, the mass of work compared to the crawling pace of education, and (perhaps most importantly) unwillingness to expel serious troublemakers.

Schools in a competitive environment, multiple schools competing for students and their associated funding, would create incentive to fix these problems (offer competitive teacher pay, offer a better set of teachers to prospective students, etc). Also, it takes the edge off of expelling students to have other schools to fall back on, allowing the school greater ability to keep order on their grounds.

Students can drop bad schools and schools can drop bad students. The learning environment is thus improved.

(The ideal system would include private schools with tuition equal to or less than the maximum voucher payout, $3,000 in this case. Essentially, that's a free private school.)

Monopolies cultivate corruption. Vouchers make competition. Competition will make mediocrity in our public schools look bad. Of course the public schools don't want a fire lit beneath their feet, but I think it's just what we need to make them start moving. If it turns out the public schools don't look bad, at least we'll find out. You can't improve something you refuse to measure. You can't measure something without comparing it to something else. Anyone that doesn't want to be measured is probably hiding something. Checks and balances are always a good thing.