Ronnie | 5:43 p.m. Sept. 7, 2007
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.
Joey | 3:05 p.m. Sept. 24, 2007
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.
ThePsudo@gmail | 2:14 p.m. Oct. 27, 2007
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.)
Comments continue below
Mike G. | 8:22 p.m. Nov. 5, 2007
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.

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.

Image
Deseret Morning News graphic

Advertisement
previousnext

Latest comments

Celtics crush Jazz

Hail my friend! I like it, that is way better idea also lets get a new head...

Great article.

Maybe the President wants to work with actual data and go over all scenarios...

Obama to want revised war options

There is not a single shred of evidence that Al Qaida was in Iraq before the...

Selfishness to blame for Jazz woes?

DWill knows how to be politically correct and say the right things. He is...

Utes remain silent about BCS

It's pretty pathetic that you have to refer to a season from 13 years ago for...

"...for the time being, [society] regards marriage as the relationship that...

Historically, Utes have owned TCU

Maybe so, but the Yewts do not stand a chance. The frogs are for real. BCS...

Amen brother!

Jazz not putting in effort

Working hard on defense: Lets see give up 7-9 3s per game score few...

Advertisements
Advertisement