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Voters, approve vouchers in November

It isn't the money which concerns the Public School system, it is the loss of power.

Amen! Great article.

Utahns, get your families off of educational welfare.

Don't know what LaVarr's drinking, but I'll have one please. Vouchers are just the first part of the strategy of opponents of public education. The next part is the whining about paying for private education AND paying taxes to educate other family's kids. Then come the tax credits. Then finally comes the tumbling down of public education. In the meantime, the voucher kids are gettings their heads filled with creationist garbage and generally losing their societal connection with the lowly "public kids". The Chinese, the Finns and everybody else go sailing by.

Public education needs a lot of adjustment for sure. Less tinkering by the test-em-till-they-bleed crowd. Better pay for good teachers. No pay for bad ones. But it's foolish to believe that public education will be somehow improved by the bogus competition of voucher-supported schools.

Convenient to post this when no countering view can be offered by Frank. Gutless, actually.

I believe the arguement presented on saving money is bogus. A manipulation of statistics. Cost per child to educate them is generally arrived by taking the total expenditures and dividing it among the number of children. If it cost $100,000 to have a teacher, building, utilities, etc. to teach 10 students, that is $10,000 per student. If one leaves, you are not losing 1/10 of a building, or 1/10 of the teacher, your fixed costs are still $100,000. However, it seems you'll be getting less funding to meet those expenditures. Only if you reached a reduction where you could close schools, reduce the number of teachers, admin, etc. would it make it a difference. Reducing a class of 25 students by one or two will not do that.

1. Vouchers are provided for all of the students who currently are not in public schools, or wouldn't be anyway in the future. That is an absolute loss for public school funding that far outweighs any gain unless you think private school enrollments will quadruple. 2. The law does nothing to change what schools receive per pupil - fewer pupils, less money. 3. Why should parent whose children have finished school, or couples and individuals with no children pay more to support public schools than those who choose private schools? Everyone benefits, even if they don't use the serivce directly. Can I get rebates for any service I don't use or want? No. Vouchers are an attack on the social contract and education. You don't see conservatives promoting vouchers for poor people to go to private doctors to unburden the public clinics, do you?

ThouShaltNotCovet,
Which one is "educational welfare"? Public education where everyone has the same opportunity; or lining up at the government trough for a voucher check that subsidizes your personal choice?

Just seems fair to give families their tax money back so they can choose the school that is best for them. Why do we have to be stuck in government-run schools, unless we're rich? Especially in education, where we have decided that it's important to provide education for all. It's not like cars. Education is the one chance to get out of poverty - so yes government should pay for the equal opportunity, but it does not follow that they have to run the schools themselves.

Hmmmm...

Voucher accepting private schools can choose their studentbody--accepting only the best and brightest (cheapest to educate) and thus leaving, in the public schools, those who required special services (most expensive to educate). Voucher accepting private schools have no accountability written into this bill (unless you count an audit after FIVE years), and therefore won't have to follow the unfunded and partially funded state and federal educational mandates. Voucher accepting private schools don't have to follow the very expensive teaching and testing mandates of No Child Left Behind. Voucher accepting private schools can (according to a section of this bill) have parents sign away their rights to Special Education services (an Individual Education Plan or IEP) which is probably the most expensive, and unfunded, factor in public education. Voucher accepting private schools aren't required to provide counseling, limited English, bilingual, emotionally damaged, semi lock down, "alternative", or young mothers educational services that the public schools are required to provide. The thing most people like LaVarr forget is that all students are not equal when it comes to funding. Those requiring special services are VERY expensive to educate!
LaVarr, the only point you make that I MIGHT have to concede is the lowering of class size. However, the jury is still out on that one. When the first three Charter Schools opened in my area, the regular public schools were promised by Morley, Bramble, Ferrin, etc. what a wonderful thing this would be for "lowering the class sizes in the regular public schools." Well, here we are 3 years later and my average class size has gone from 36 to 39 students. So much for promises.

Now, LaVarr, just how does a voucher save money for the public school? You haven't been sneaking into Investigations Math have you?

A good public education is provided for all through our taxes. But once you leave the public system and into the private, it becomes your responsibility to pay. Some people may not feel that public transit is right for them, but that doesn't mean that taxes that go to fund public transportation should be given back to them to pay for their limo ride.

Smaller classes sizes with vouchers? Only if just a few students leave the school. Five students leave; five classes theoritically with 1 student less per class.
But if approximately 15 or more students leave the school, the school district does not have the money generated by the student count so the teaching staff is reduced. Smaller classes will not happen.
Teacher staffing is determined by the number of students. This provoucher argument of smaller classes is bogus and not based on reality at all.

I recently received my tax notice and I am happy to pay the proposed $1600 to the local school district. They do a fabulous job with what little money they have.

I do however oppose paying $109 to the South Davis Recreation Center. I am all for choice in our recreation activities. I pay a yearly fee to belong to a private pool because as a parent, I have decided I want better for my children than a public swimming pool has to offer. I hereby request the state provide me with a voucher to help pay the cost of sending my family to a private pool. Just think of the benefits. There will be less crowding at the public pool, there will be a lower life guard to swimmer ratio at the public pool, and just think of the extra parking space. The savings to the state abound.

One last point, public education is not just about educating your kids, it's about having an educated society, the very backbone of a functioning democracy. Those who accept vouchers and turn their backs on publically funded education should sign an agreement that they will never go to a doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc. who attended a public school. The point is, we all benefit from educating children. People who send their children to private school should not get public funds just because they don't have children in the public system. Plenty of people with no children pay into the system and they have no children to benefit from it. Everyone benefits from having an education populous.

June,

You are right on.

When my daughter was in kindergarten, there where 60 students spread among 3 classes, or 20 students per class. The next year, the charter school opened, and the neighborhood school lost 2 children in that grade. Those two kids meant that 3 classes could no longer be justified. The result was 58 kids spread among 2 teachers for a class size of 29 students. Good thing we had the charter school to help reduce class sizes at the neighborhood school!

Having a couple of students per grade leave the system does not automatically translate into a smaller class size.

Does creaming off the cheapest, easiest-to-service clients help either funding or competition with insurance companies? No, it runs them out of business.

That is what vouchers do to public schools. It creams off the cheapest, easiest-to-educate students and leaves the rest for the public schools. That doesn't leave more money for public ed. It makes public ed. statistics look more expensive.

Whatever money it initially "saves" will not go to schools. It will just make it easier for legislators to spend it elsewhere or give tax cuts. No real friend of public ed. will support vouchers.

It won't create competition because the public schools CAN"T change with all the laws around their necks.

For that matter, no real friend of private schools will support vouchers either, because it will eventually tie the private schools down with the same restrictions that are on the public schools.

Vouchers are a lose-lose proposition for all except those wanting a hand-out at tax-payer expense!

To think vouchers will solve all those problems in the school system is insane. You obviously haven't seen the details. The state's independent research on the matter showed that in under 10 years the program will be costing millions of dollars and saving none in the public school system.

This is a load of crap and so are vouchers.

Maybe those of us parents that have the bright kids are tired of them going to a public school where they are not challenged.
When I was a new parent I put much effort into getting my child ready for school.
When he eventually went he was ahead of everyone else.
This resulted in him spending a great deal of time doing and learning nothing.
Being bright and bored he started to act up. Then he was punished for this.
He eventually learned to hate school.
There seems to be all kinds of programs for the slow kids but very little for the bright ones.

Amen, WC

This class sized argument is ridiculous. If teacher hiring is based on student population, and if a few students leave and the school hires less teachers, isnt' this an indictment of this silly system? What you're saying is that no amount of funding will ever fix that problem, because they just hire enough teachers to keep classes huge. That's not a problem you can attribute to parental choice--that's a problem with the school system that doesn't fix something when it has the chance.

And one other thing: the argument for choice is one based on evidence of success as well as some very basic economic fact ( i.e., competition makes everything better and cheaper.) But so many of you voucher opponents go on and on about fixed costs and expensive students, yada yada yada. The crux of the matter is IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION. That takes change. Change is hard. But it is needed, and worth it.

Webb is right on. Go vouchers, everybody wins (except lousy teachers and decrepit bureaucrats)

The fact that Paul Mero's Sutherland Institute is BUYING space in the newspaper to promote the voucher idea (based of course on a wholly specious interpretation of Utah constitutional and educational history) ought to be enough cause thinking people to look askance at the whole idea. It's disappointing that LeVar has allowed himself to be sucked in to the delusion.