Reader comments
Voucher foes take on other issues

Anonymous | 1:53 a.m. March 21, 2008

Any group that can oppose the Eagle Forum will get my vote.

Yawn | 5:45 a.m. March 21, 2008

So rather than focus on the needs of the students they will focus on the needs of the bureaucracy.

anonymous | 6:53 a.m. March 21, 2008

Their work won't be finished until the legislative knuckle-heads that forced vouchers down our throats are all voted out of office.

Comments continue below

Parent | 7:53 a.m. March 21, 2008

They also came out strongly against HB349 open enrollment this year. The Utah PTA said they would never support legislation like this.

The union opposes it because it will allow parents to move their kids away from bad teachers.

The PTA helps it because they do what the union asks them to do.

Is there anyone who will advocate for our children?

FYI Parent | 8:03 a.m. March 21, 2008

Open enrollment already exists. You can take your child anywhere you would like as long as the school is not closed because of overcrowding.

Open Enrollment | 8:14 a.m. March 21, 2008

I'm not sure that open enrollment is all that good for all kids. Could it be another legislative attempt to create funding chaos in the school system. A lot of things are supposedly done in the name of students in order to justify anti-public education agendas. Public Charter School funding is a good example of a fraud against regular public schools. If a student comes back from charter schools to regular public schools, the charter schools still get to keep the money if students are sent back after October 1. The legislature is aware of this loophole but has been unwilling to fix it. So yeah, I'm against any open enrollment bill until the Utah legislature can put a little integrity into funding issues.

Science Teacher | 8:31 a.m. March 21, 2008

Open enrollment is ANTI parent. All it does is allow parents to physically move their kid from one neighborhood to another without having to actually live there.

It screws up the tax base for each school. It also usually means a BAD kid is coming into school. More often than not, the parents are moving the kids because they are getting into trouble and the sad fact is, the kids bring the trouble with them.

I've seen time after time, especially with families fleeing CA. Their "angels" are some of the hardest bangers in UT schools.

Keep schools closed to ONLY local residents that locally support the school and have a vested interest in it (because it's right down the block from their property). The occasional exception can be made, but only when the child is stellar or is not a behavioral problem.

Tax increases | 8:36 a.m. March 21, 2008

If you look at their website, you'll see that they also want to increase taxes by at least $600 million, including a $400 million property tax increase. Somehow that never made it into the article.

CharterSchoolAdvocate | 8:47 a.m. March 21, 2008

I pulled my kid from a charter high school and returned him to the Jr. High after the first quarter of this year. Yes, I did think it was wrong that the school got to keep his funding for the year. Work WITH us to change funding problems not against us.

HAL | 9:17 a.m. March 21, 2008

The PTA is definitely in favor of Open Enrollment. The reason that the PTA opposed Rep. Fisherï¿½s legislation had to do with (hopefully) unintended consequences. These provisions will make it impossible for a local school who is trying to lower class sizes in certain grades unable to do so. Under HB349 a school that wants lower class size in kindergarten and first grade (and gives up an expense elsewhere to pay for it) may not be able to. The school can be forced to adhere to whatever the district average is, taking away all local decision making. The lines in question are listed below.

(b) (i) An elementary school teacher shall have a class size at least equal to the district's
74 average class size for the corresponding grade.
75 (ii) A middle, junior, or senior high school teacher shall have a class size at least equal
76 to the district's average class size for similar classes.

Members of the PTA believe that smaller class size is the key to student achievement and success. The PTA tried to have amendment passed. But ultimately it was never changed.

Try to get the entire story when passing on information.

Dave Hansen | 10:01 a.m. March 21, 2008

What?? Letting parents choose their kids school is ANTI-parent?? And we wonder what's wrong with our schools?

Maybe it's because the people in the system put the needs of the system before the needs of the individual family and student.

One of the best school districts in the world is in Edmonton. They score at the top of the world on test scores, and guess what? They have 100% open enrollment in their schools. Almost all of the funding is tied to the individual student and follows them to whatever public school they go to.

It's amazing what can happen when we let parents make important decisions for their children.

Science teacher knows best | 12:29 p.m. March 21, 2008

Silly Dave Hansen thinking the system exists to serve the kids. Science teacher knows best - the individual exists for the system, not the other way around. Science teacher clearly wants those CA kids (read: minorities) from the west side to stay where they belong, not come over to his east side schools.

Hey Science Teacher! | 2:12 p.m. March 21, 2008

Last year I enrolled my son at a high school that does not serve my neighborhood. Guess what? He has been getting a 3.5 GPA throughout the year and has not been in trouble once.

Based on your comments he should have been focusing his energy on getting straight F's and burning down the school.

If you really are a science teacher maybe you shouldn't be so quick to make generalized statements about kids who transfer schools. There are a lot of good kids who need a more challenging and supportive environment. Thus they are transferred to a different school.

Science Teacher | 2:12 p.m. March 21, 2008

You have it all wrong.

It is ANTI parent, because more often than not, a student is changed from one school to another because of PROBLEMS. They bring much of their drama with them and it affects ALL they come into contact with. That means a parent that makes the effort to move into a neighborhood and puts time and tax money into that school base can watch it all be wasted on bad transfers to their school.

A school in my district just had this problem and had to eject (i.e. refuse boundary exceptions) for about 100 kids because they were all gang members and caused gang issues in the school.

Guess what... they were initially in that school to escape gang problems in their former school. Come to find out, they were part of the problem.

Again, exceptions for the average student are fine, but OPEN enrollment to all is nothing more than a problem in education. It spreads the disease that affects many of our urban schools.

Utah Republican | 2:50 p.m. March 21, 2008

One people
One state
One education system

Science Teacher | 2:56 p.m. March 21, 2008

Read my above postings. I didn't make a blanket statement. I said "more often than not". Heck, I said it twice!

Close the loophole on OPEN enrollment.

It should all be at the discretion of the school.

Teachers Know Best | 4:26 p.m. March 21, 2008

Didn't you all learn your lesson with the voucher vote? EDUCATORS SUCH AS SCIENCE TEACHER KNOW BEST. Don't pretend to think that you as a parent should have a voice in the system.

Science Teacher | 8:10 p.m. March 22, 2008

I supported vouchers. It is pro parent.

Open enrollment is not. It lets the choice of one parent trump the property ownership of hundreds of parents.

Add your comment

Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.

Words Remaining

E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.