Reader comments
Financing voucher fight

Follow the money; it will usually lead you to the truth. The anti-voucher position boils down to a union turf war. Our kids are the turf, and the union doesn�t want to lose any. They would have us believe they are worried about what vouchers would do to our children.

When it reality, they are worried about the union losing power and influence. Perish the though that private schools (non-union) begin hiring the best teachers and paying them for performance rather than seniority. Parents can�t have more options; union dues might decline!

Wasted!! All this money is wasted. Why not just put that money into the school system. If you want some children to go to a private school, use the money that you wasted in the campaign for Ref. 1 and use it there instead. It's all a bad idea anyways... personally I plan on voting against Ref. 1. To many flaws, and in the end it will be wasted money, spend the money in the public school system. Look at supply and demand, if the demand for private school goes up, the cost will go up because there is a limited amount of people they can take,when the cost goes up, once again you will have only families that are well off that will be able to afford it.

And just where do the teacher unions get their money from?
That's an important piece of information needed in the story.

Let him waste his money.

John Adams, our second president, was a beneficiary of school choice. The rest of the country benefited from his leadership. He wanted to quit school at 14 and be a farmer, like his dad. His dad let him quit for one day and then made him go back to school. After his dad discovered he didn't like school because of the teacher, he immediately pulled him out and put him in a new school with a different teacher and his performance went up immediately. He would have been a farmer rather than our president if it weren't for a father who had the ability to choose another school, where he excelled and went on to Harvard and then became a lawyer, a founding father and president.

This bill isn't "perfect". But it's a step in the right direction. And just as "the business of moving the world forward doesn't wait for perfect people"; it also doesn't wait for perfect legislation--there is no such thing.

Parents have the right to choose what is best for their children; not the government, the school board or the teachers and their union. Freedom of choice is American.

One is welfare for the rich. The same conservatives fight government interference in private business. Yet I guess taking government money is ok.

I am amazed at how much the so-called politicos up on Capitol Hill here are NOT contributing money to a campaign that they are in favor of...and that is the voucher movement. They can vote for it up on the Hill but when it comes down to contributing money to making certain it passes, these men are not willing to put their money where their votes were/are. I am against vouchers, but at least I can give Mr. Byrne of Overstock.com the respect he deserves for something he believes in by putting in a few million of his own dollars. Where is Mr. Curtis, Mr. Bramble, and the rest of the GOP???

Utahns must realize that this issue transcends Utah's borders. California parents are being subjected to homosexual propaganda being forced on their children by the GLBT lobby. If vouchers were readily available in California, you wouldn't see this, as the lobby knows the public schools would be decimated, with defections.

I find it ironic how the "pro-choice" people vehemently opposed "choice" for parents, when it comes to their children's education.

The entire country looks to Utah, the bastion of conservative thinking, to validate "choice" when it comes to childrens' education.

Your article said:

Pro-voucher ads urge voters not to let a national teachers union tell them how to vote next Tuesday, yet the pro-voucher movement itself is receiving three-fourths of its funds from one man � Park City millionaire Patrick Byrne.

What doesn't make sense is your lack of distinction between funds from a Utah citizen, and funds primarily from a liberal union OUTSIDE the state trying to overturn our Utah law!!

It appears that some of the anti-voucher phone banks are also coming from outside our fair state. When was the last time you as a Utahn tried to overturn an Arizona law????? !!!

Good for Mr. Byrne! We're grateful he is willing to spend his money supporting things that are good for society.

The law will help our family get a better education, even though our children won't be attending private school, because some kids from our middle-class neighborhood will.

We hope his donations help people to see that the voucher law is education money well spent.

Thank you.

Imagine if all of that money had been put to better use and given to the schools to improve the conditions and teacher pay in the state.

No more my money for you! I'll shop elsewhere.

Let's see. An out of state labor union (which by its very nature represents the best interest of teachers) supports one side of an issue. A Utah philanthropist (who represents the best interest of students) supports the other side of the same issue. Which causes the most concern? I see red flags all over the place. Any time the NEA supports an issue I have to take a close look at it. My support for vouchers is not based solely on the fact that NEA opposes them. I have taken a close look at the issue and I support vouchers because they are a good opportunity to give educational options to more students.

I also support our traditional public schools. Two of my children have thrived there and had excellent educational opportunities. I believe that most Utah students can and will be educated effectivly by those schools. But until those schools can offer all students an effective educatinal opportunity to every student (like my 3rd child who was drowning in traditional public school but now thrives in a Charter School) there needs to be options available. There is no way more $ can solve the problems my son faced!

Too bad the money on both sides of this issue couldn't have been spent on Utah's kids rather than this political match of wills.

Following the money on the pro-voucher side leads to businessmen (like Byrne, who is almost singlehandedly trying to convince me to vote for vouchers) who may see children and parents as merely consumers. How do I know their main motivation would not become profit? At present, I have trouble trusting vouchers because I imagine a future with great schools for the rich and terrible schools for the poor. This is what I've seen in California where private schools are more prevalent than here. Is that better than what we have now?

This is bad legislation. I will be voting no. The folks behind vouchers are elitists who want the to see the ultimate destruction of our public schools.
Parents have the right currently to pull their kids out and send them to private schools. There are scholarships for your kids to attend private schools if you cannot afford it. This is just another government program to redistribute wealth. Shame on the conservative Utah legislature for buying into this garbage.
All this would do is increase peoples dependency on the public dole.

John Adams is totally my hero. I can't believe you used him as an example. We're talking about education over 200 years ago. There was no public education. If you don't like a teacher in your school, you can always ask for another and I know it happens because it happened to me. You can also get permission to attend another school if you are unhappy with the one in your neighborhood. You have absolutely no proof that John Adams would not support our present school system, but you'd have a lot of proof that he wouldn't support the lack of moral standards many people have today. What is wrong with our schools is not the teachers. It is the direct result of families falling apart. I should know, I have personally seen the affects.

Your story stated: "He's close to it, he's here ... he has a vested interest in citizens here, he is an employer who employs over 1,000 people and a has vested interest ensuring that he has qualified staff and that begins with a solid education," PCE spokeswoman Leah Barker said

Yes, but our teachers were also trained here and work here. The public school system employs thousands and provide that solid education. So Leah why don't you think these teachers have a vested interest in the future of the public school system. Why not consider their concerns valid?

Most of our public school teachers have not had a decent salary increase in over a decade.

If the demand for private schools increase, then the tuition will increase making it more difficult for the poor or even middle-class to send their child to private school with tuition ranging from $4,000 to $8,000 a semester! If you cannot afford to buy gasoline to drive them to school or food for their lunches, how will you afford to come up with $3,500 to $5,000 + the voucher to pay the tuition.

Vouchers are a bandaid experiment that will not fix the problem!

I am tired of hearing people whine about not having choice. This is not about choice. Choice has existed, it exists now and it will exist in the future.
I am not a fan of the unions, of teachers, or there constant whinning about how unfairly they are treated. For me this is about taxes!
So what the pro-voucher camp must prove to me is that this plan will not result in a major tax increase.
Here is what I see happening, students moving to private schools, teachers crying that they must have more money to compete, and my taxes going up. There is no way the government is going to hand out money without taking money back!
My plan, shut down the public schools all together and let the funding go to truly needy children so they can get a quality private education.

This is a scheme for the national educational system (government) to take control of our schools. With Utah accepting this scam it will prompt other states to come into the spiders web. Then we will promote a national school system with strings attached controlling the states school system. I'm against new government programs. Shame on our governor for signing this scam without voter approval and now the rich and famous are buying advertisements to line there own pockets....FOLLOW THE MONEY. How many of them have invested in private schools for making money and now trying to do it with taxpayers money. VOTE NO! Have the rich and famous invest in our public school system by lobbying for better pay for our teachers and system! VOTE NO!