Vouchers go down in flames [Utah votes no]

Salt Lake City Tribune ^ | Nov 7, 2007 | Glen Warchol

[JCEccles]

Vermont on top, Arizona at the bottom. Obviously, the “smartest state” rankings aren’t adjusted to reflect the impact of illegal immigration.

[Zman516]

I’m afraid you’re right.

The NEA poured enormous loads of money into Utah to defeat
vouchers, the gullible swallowed the hype, and it appears if we’ll be stuck with the NEA screwing up public ed for the foreseeable future. Very sad.

[whatisthetruth]

Must be the case, public schools in Utah with Mormon dominated students, parents and teachers don’t seem to suffer from the same ills that public schools in ther parts of the nation suffer from that would make parents want to seek better schools.

[Non-Sequitur]

By the end of the phase in, the program was projected to cost taxpayers $430 million.

Maybe they were just opposed to another government entitlement program?

[batter]

Rural areas have a higher LDS proportion but I’m not sure it would be 100% (especially if you look at active LDS - which I don’t believe would affect moral perception on student-teacher sex). The last two teachers busted for sex crimes (last week or two) were in rural schools but I haven’t seen much on how the communities are reacting.

[phillyfanatic]

Ca. has voted against this common sense bill. Most other states will too. The NEA and the state ed. labor unions are the most powerful lobbyists around. I want vouchers. The public has been brainwashed that vouchers will bring on nutty Christian schools, lousy home schools, nutty Islamo schools. That this would not happen in droves does not matter. The ‘educators’ have brainwashed the public and vouchers are dead. No state will pass it. Mark my words. BTW, I have been teaching for 46 years and want vouchers.

[batter]

Yeah, this would represent an expansion of an entitlement program (education) but would have helped break the monopolistic iron grip of the unions and bureaucrats.

The extra 430mil, IIRC, was a union figure. I'm not sure what the real figure was. Further, the 'do no harm' fund for vouchers was only created for 5 years (with 'surplus' tax money), thereafter, the $3000 would be taken from the school budget with the remaining $4000 retained by the school (with one less student).

In terms of taxes, vouchers, of themselves, should not have increased taxes as in 5 yrs the money would be pulled directly from ed budgets (as noted above). Where the increase come in is that we will have about 150k more students. If some of those went to private schools, it would have saved taxpayers money as there would be fewer public buildings to build and teachers to hire etc (private schools would increase teacher hiring). Unless you actually believe that the public ed monopoly wouldn't just ask (demand) for more $$$ and look for greater efficiency and innovation.

[batter]

Oh yeah, if it were up to me, the remaining funds would not have been given back to the schools, it should be used as a tax savings and returned to taxpayers but, politically, there is no way that would happen right now (hey, vouchers didn’t come close to making it as it was).

[achilles2000]

I agree that the voucher solution is very unlikely to happen in any relevant timeframe. So, either we kill the system by depriving it of another 15-20% of students or we will see what is left of American culture destroying by the government school system, which, unlike Christian schools and homeschooling, actually is “nutty”, vicious, dangerous, and generally a swirling cauldron of intellectual, social,spiritual, and moral pathologies.

[Non-Sequitur]

As a short-term fix, i.e. to break the teechurz-yoouniunz, I could maybe see vouchers as a tool to create alternatives.

There is no such thing in this country as a short-term entitlement. Let's be honest here. Those getting the $3000 tuition vouchers are not paying anywhere near $3000 in state and local taxes. So it's a subsidy, a government handout that will pay for something they are unable or unwilling to pay for themselves. And once the government gets into the business of subsidizing private education then they'll remain in it because people would rather have someone else pay their bill than do so themselves. And since the government is paying the freight for private schools then it won't be long before they'll want a say in what the schools are teaching. And then the whole circle starts over again.

The only way to keep private schools private is to keep the government out of it. About as far as I'd go would be some plan where private school tuition could be a deduction on your state income taxes. That would give those wanting an alternative to public schools some relief without actually resorting to a check from the government.

[wintertime]

rescuing their children from a dark and decaying system that takes otherwise normal children and turns them into functional illiterates with dead souls.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I call them the Death Eaters, and all teachers supporting this system are responsible. Now...for saying this, some dim bulb is going to accuse me of ··personally··attacking them.

And,,,you are right! The system needs to completely and totally collapse. Vouchers merely will merely prop up this evil. If enough parents abandon the Marxist Indoctrination Camps they will collapse on their own.

Unfortunately,,,Marxism is our nation´s most urgent and serious threat, and the schools are their madrasses. We will not survive if the Marxists succeed in indoctrinating the next generation of voters. Hopefully, the government school system will collapse in time to save freedom.