I have been so busy lately, but have wanted to chime in on the state
referendum up for vote here in Utah today. I feel a little guilty for even
mentioning it because I was so busy today I didn't even get
around to voting and that is not something I am proud of.
If I had voted, I would have voted FOR Referendum 1, also known as
"that school voucher thing." But, I really don't care
what happens. Looking at the preliminary election results this evening, it
doesn't look good for the referendum at this point.
I have two big problems with the legislation that was passed and signed
into law. First: It provides vouchers to parents who want to send their
kids to private schools based on need. That seems to fly in the face of the
intended purpose of vouchers! If vouchers are intended to ease the overall
burden on parents who pay property taxes (of which a large portion goes to
their local school district) and fork out the tuition costs for a private
school, why would the largest voucher amounts go to the families who pay
the lowest property taxes (presumably the families with the lowest
incomes). That's just... backwards!
A sensible school voucher program should be equally accessible to all
families regardless of need or income.
Next, the pro-voucher camps have argued the legislation is actually
good for public schools because for every child that is
removed from public schools and placed in private schools via a voucher,
there would be at least $3,500 left in the school's budget for that
year. Again, this flies in the face of another thing a voucher program is
supposed to do: Make poor-performing schools feel the heat.
The concept of school choice means you can pull your child out of a poor
school and send them to a better school. Since schools get their funding
based on the number of students enrolled, this effectively punishes the
poor-performing schools and encourages them to improve. It's called
"competition" and it works really well in the real world.
Because the voucher legislation up for referendum vote doesn't
effectively penalize poor schools, it therefore gives them no incentive to
improve. The result would be poor-performing schools that continue to be poor-performing
schools.
So, I say let the referendum fail. Legislators need to get serious. They
tried this last year to pass legislation that was extremely accomodating and sympathetic to public schools, especially poor-performing public
schools, and it was balked at. This next legislative session, Utah lawmakers
need to push through some voucher legislation that actually has some
teeth!
