Vouchers
Ok, all you Utah voters. I have a bit of a plea for you. As you know there is an election coming up on Nov. 6th. I don’t know if it is too late to register to vote to be able to in this upcoming election but I very strongly encourage those who are not registered to vote to do so BEFORE the 2008 election when we will be voting for a new president. My motto is, if you didn’t vote then you can’t complain about the choices our leaders make. I will post another blog with voter registration information in it.
Now let me tell you about vouchers. I am strongly against them. Here is a brief and unbiased overview of exactly what they are. Vouchers (this info. is straight from the voter information pamphlet) will provide annual, state-funded scholarships for qualifying children to attend eligible private schools. Scholarships under the program range from $500-$3000 per student, depending on family size and income. Now at first glance this doesn’t seem too bad does it? Well, consider the fact that the money for those scholarships comes from our taxes. Do I want my tax money to send kids to a private school? Umm no. I believe it would be better used updating and improving public schools.
My next point is that the average tuition cost for a private school here in Utah ranges from $2,200 to nearly $15,000 a year. (info. received from http://www.sltrib.com/education/ci_5301412) This means that only those who can afford the cost of tuition above and beyond the voucher money that they receive will be able to take advantage of the voucher program. Which means that a child with a low income family will only be able to go to a private school if they are offered $3,000 in voucher money and only if they go to the lowest-cost parochial schools. It seems to me that the chances of this voucher program helping mid to low income families is very slim. The families most likely to receive “help” from vouchers are those who can already afford to send their kids to a private school and would like a bit of an income return for doing so. This doesn’t seem quite right to me.
My last point falls in what it takes to qualify for a scholarship (again this is taken right out of the voter information pamphlet)
Qualifying for a scholarship
To qualify for a scholarship under the Parent
Choice in Education Program, a student must meet
at least one of the following criteria:
• be born after September 1, 2001;
• be enrolled as a full-time student in a Utah public school on January 1, 2007;
• not be a Utah resident on January 1, 2007; or
• be in a lower income family.
May I draw your attention to the third bullet point. To be eligible they must not be a Utah resident on Jan. 1, 2007? Does this even make sense to you? It certainly doesn’t make sense to me that my tax money would go to pay private school tuition for a non-Utah resident.
Thank you to everyone who has taken time to read my opinion. I just want to mention one last thing. In a lot of the anti-voucher commercials it speaks of the NEA as “a liberal group on the east coast who wants to take away parent choice in Utah.” I would just like to let you know that the NEA is the National Association for Education. They are a union whose sole goal is the betterment of public education for our children. Don’t you think that they, if anyone, would know what is best in educating our children? I certainly do. They are not some evil group trying to de-bunk the voucher referendum. So there you go.