Nah. The folks in Utah have much more of a commitment to public schools than is commonly understood.
This is just proof of that.
I had access to good public schools, long ago, and also attended a private school for awhile, and attended both good public and private colleges. Grew up in a great family as well.
With those blessings to guide me, I think all is not lost. Not forever, anyway.
Let somebody analyze what caused Utah voters to vote this down. I don’t think every plan in every state in America and how every plan is presented to the public have to follow the exact path the Utah defeat followed.
Within defeat are often seeds of future victory.
Skools are the best jobs in lost of podunk towns. I don’t know if you have noticed but teachers, cops, firemen form a iron triangle and always support and vote for each others pay raise, palaces, and other interests.
Asking people to think for themselves, is in at least half the cases, impossible. So, the very idea of taking control of ones mental development is unfathomable. They grew up in the public skool box, and can not think outside of it.
Money and habit, vs. risk.
Ouch!!!! But true!
The reason vouchers keep failing is that they’ve got such a small constituency. The people who receive the primary benefit from them are people who either have their kids in private schools, or who would put them in private schools, if they rec’d a voucher. Unfortunately, that is less than 51% of the voters, and will continue to be.
Looking at the bad side, though, the lack of a voucher program reduces the support for public education, generally. People without school age kids are likely to vote against education funding. Now people who have their kids in private schools will do so as well. And that is a growing percent of the voters.
Well Byrne didn't help matters with his comments that you "might as well throw away" black students who flunk out. The NAACP made a big stink which overshadowed the referendum.
In earlier days I think the mindset in Utah was that public schools were the Mormon’s private schools.
IMO, Utah is far from the best state for this type of system - it's not as conservative as many think.
See post#19 (especially, the part of Utah being deceptive for conservatives).
No, it’s not permanent. It is slowly collapsing all over the country. Another 15-20% of kids will eventually leave, and the system will go into financial cardiac arrest. The collapse needs to be accelerated, however, because the public school system destroys more lives and more of our culture every additional day it is in existence. Voucher politics is not the answer - taking children out is. Deprive the schools of enough revenue units and its over. Even if I were wrong about this, and I’m not, parents who take their children out of the government school system are least rescuing their children from a dark and decaying system that takes otherwise normal children and turns them into functional illiterates with dead souls.
When vouchers are proposed in amounts that are a tiny fraction of public schools’ and private schools’ per student expenditures, it’s little wonder most people fote against them. Their taxes will go up and they still won’t be able to afford to put their children in private schools. I want to see vouchers in exactly the same amount as public school per student expenditure. THAT would shut down a lot of public schools and force dramatic change at nearly all the rest, and cause a wide array of private schools to pop up. There should also be a mechanism to make the funds available to homeschoolers (including those who are schooling OTHER people’s children in their own homes).
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.
Maybe they were just opposed to another government entitlement program?