Utah's voucher vote most important of this year, and next

Daily Herald ^ | November 2, 2007 | George Will

[TheEaglehasLanded]

There, teachers unions, whose idea of progress is preservation of the status quo, are waging an expensive and meretricious campaign to overturn the right of parents to choose among competing schools, public and private, for the best education for their children.

[TheEaglehasLanded]

Since the state legislature passed this and gives people a choice, Utah voters should keep it and not give the NEA backdoor victory.

[dr.zaeus]

“Intellectually bankrupt but flush with cash...”
This is the real problem with the teacher’s unions, and why they are the biggest enemy of true education reform in our nation.

[Hoffer Rand]

Here, here! I voted early with a hearty YEA for school vouchers. Some guy came by my house Saturday, wearing an “Against Ref. 1” T-shirt. I told him not to bother giving me a pamphlet, I’d already voted and fully support giving parents choices.

[Sidebar Moderator]

A few notes from the moderators:

1) Don't change the headline
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[batter]

I support the vouchers, but the NEA/UEA (Utah Ed union) cabal has been pretty effective in scaring folks with distortions and misinformation (gee, imagine that). Their ads were debunked by a local news station but it looks like vouchers may fail. Turnout is key.

On the bright side, the UEA may have alienated some members. I know a couple of teachers who are quite upset that the UEA gave them bad information (knowingly mislead) on the issue. They're voting for vouchers and don't trust the union any longer. Hopefully, this thing will shed some additional light on where education union priorities lay - membership ($$$) not the students.

The down side, we will have an additional new 150K students costing hundreds of millions to the system. When they come for the millions more, old folks are going to lose their homes to the tax burden.

[ghost of nixon]

Utah is actually an ideal place to try a voucher experiment. The unions & liberals have been working hard and spending lots of money to defeat it. Why not try it and see how it works? The unions apparently don’t want to take the chance that it might work.

[batter]

Yeah, but, unfortunately, there are a lot of apathetic voters here and many are uninformed. They do feel the responsibility and duty to vote but seem to fail to get informed prior to voting (rely on tv ads rather than taking an hour or two to get specifics and debunk false assertions). The result - emotional scare campaigns work well against new initiatives. As sad as it is, big, scary, vague literature still works better than detailed, specific, factual literature. Additionally, the ed union typically votes as a block and depends on the union for information (which many assume is accurate).

I support the vouchers and they should have easily passed here, but, given the above, they will either barely pass or fail (IMO).

[batter]

Well, Utah went against vouchers, big time (38% for 62% against). Shame really, the Union wins this one and puts us on a collision course with huge tax increases to maintain the status quo. After having a huge increase in my property taxes, I may have to look to another county or state once they come knocking for the millions it will take to maintain our failing system (50% of students either drop out or fail the state basic skills test).

I assisted a family member who is a teacher (Jr. High) with grading a relatively simple assignment. I told her that I would have failed 3/4 of her class - she agreed but said the School District doesn't allow her to do so. Most of the work was less than pathetic - my dad would've taken me to the woodshed if I had come home with one of those assignments. But, at least, her students will FEEL good about themselves.

The students I felt bad for were the two or three who turned in the A grade work in a sea of F worthy crap (which ended up with a C). We're failing our kids but the general populace isn't involved or informed enough to care - everyone is too focused on fun and "me me me".

One last thing to note as well is that Utah is quite deceptive. While the states seems dominated by Republicans, many (if not most) of our elected officials are weak social Republicans and fiscal Democrats.

Utahns are incredibly trusting of government. The result is that state and local government, for the most part, taxes and spends (often on feel good stuff) and government programs and institutions are frequently seen as sacred, untouchable stuff (such as public ed). While there is a minor tax rebellion going on in Davis and Weber counties, it remains to be seen if it can reach a tipping point where people come to their senses and exact greater responsibility from government for the use of our money...