Great school-choice news from Utah
Posted on February 11, 2007
Newsmax: Utah OKs Sweeping School Voucher Program
SALT LAKE CITY — A divided Legislature approved one of the nation’s broadest voucher programs Friday, allotting up to $3,000 for any public school student to put toward private school tuition.
Voucher programs in the handful of other states that have them generally are aimed at poor families or students attending schools that have poor academic records. There will be no such restrictions in Utah, which has the largest class sizes in the country and until now has spent less per student than any other state.
The Senate approved the bill 19-10 on Friday, a week after the House endorsed it by a single vote, 38-37. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican whose children attend public schools, has said he will sign the bill into law.
The vouchers will be open to any of Utah’s 512,000 public school students. The amount will depend on family income, but even affluent families would be eligible for at least $500 per child. Students already in private schools would not be eligible.
The plan, which goes into effect this fall, is expected to cost $9.3 million in its first year and $327 million over 12 years. Utah has a $1.6 billion budget surplus. Public schools that lose enrollment will still receive a portion of state funding for five years after each student departs.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Stephen Urquhart, tried to alleviate concerns that public schools would be shortchanged. In Utah, income taxes must pay for public education. The money for vouchers would come from the state’s general fund, which pays for all other state programs.
Who could be opposed? This takes the steam out of the arguments of teacher unions, the “education professionals” and the compulsory government re-edcation camp-supporting Democrats, right? The argument has always been that school choice takes money away from the government childhod gulag, right? Please.
Nearly every education organization in the state, especially the teachers union, opposes the program, saying tax dollars should not be spent at private schools.
“This has nothing to do about educating children. … It’s about taking taxpayer dollars and giving them to private industry,” said Sen. Gene Davis, a Democrat.
Of course, Americans Benighted weighs in.
Salt Lake Trib: Fight over voucher program may not be finished
The most obvious question is whether a voucher program violates the separation of church and state by letting public tax dollars flow to religious schools. When 96 percent of Cleveland parents used their vouchers at parochial schools, a group of taxpayers took their objections all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the court said vouchers were “neutral with respect to religion” because parents, not government officials, chose where to spend school vouchers.
Supporters of Utah’s voucher bill routinely cite that 2002 decision. State courts have handled voucher challenges since then, and both Florida and Colorado struck down voucher laws that
conflicted with specific state constitutional language. Utah’s unique fight for statehood generated much stronger wording regarding the separation of church and state.
“The federal constitution doesn’t have the same direct language as Utah’s constitution does,” said Rob Boston of Americans for the Separation of Church and State.
One section of Utah’s constitution says, “No public money . . . shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction or for the support of any ecclesiastical establishment.” Another reads, “Neither the state of Utah nor its political subdivisions may make any appropriation for the direct support of any school or educational institution controlled by any religious organization.”
Such blunt language “could be fatal to this voucher legislation,” according to Boston. But pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education say vouchers don’t constitute direct funding because parents choose where to spend the money. The group also points to a past Utah case that said indirect funding of religion – such as fire protection for churches – is constitutional because religions are just one of many groups receiving services.
The separation fundamentalists’ hold on the mindless media would of course make this an “obvious question,” but the argument is obviously ridiculous. Read the bolded text. The parents make the choice. The state doesn’t.
So what’s the real agenda? That’s what’s obvious. The unions and education “professionals” lose power every time a parent has the opportunity to choose the direction of a child’s education. Government education HAS failed. These groups have made billions and have gained inordinate political clout despite a miserable record that might just take this country down. If a doctor had left as many patients dead in the operating room as the government “education” system has produced barely literate graduates who can’t name the vice president, that doctor would be rotting in solitary confinement for life. Why is the future of our children, and indeed our nation, treated less seriously?
Bottom line: Tax money (you know, OUR money) for education should be attached to the child in the first place, not the failed government schools. These unions and education bureaucracies need to be shaken awake from their entitlement delusions by a widespread demand for their heads for destroying generations of American minds. Vouchers are a step in the right direction, but won’t solve all the woes we face. Education will only improve in this country when the federal government gets its freaking nose out from where it doesn’t belong and the states tell the Stalinist teacher’s unions that they are no longer welcome.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Child Exploitation, Church And State, News
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4 Responses to “Great school-choice news from Utah”
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Public education has failed? It has problems, yes, but the public education system is one of the great strengths of this country, and put us where we are today.
Publically CONTROLLED education has failed, publically funded education FUNDED education however works great. And you also should acount for where you live. Where I live (West Hartford CT) the schools are great, but in Hartford and most cities they are awful.
Yes, after 60 years of it’s broken and we need more money to fix it. It’s time to try something beside’s the public socialist indoctrination system, let’s get back to basics by putting the parents in charge and not the State, it works well in private schools.
I’m not sure I’d give public education the same credit that Paul does, but it certainly isn’t useless. Vouchers are a worthy experiment, but there are plenty of “gotchas”, so we should proceed with caution.
That’s a horrible argument. Religious buildings represent only a small fraction of those served by fire departments. Religiously affiliated schools, as evidenced by Cleveland, would represent a huge majority of those benefiting from vouchers.
What is a separation fundamentalist?