School Vouchers has been a topic of conversation at my house ever since my friend Steve Urquhart ramrodded this legislation through the Utah congress in spite of my attempts to talk him out of it. So, if I may, I’d like to state why I’m opposed to this bill and why I have gotten all of my neighbors to sign the petition to take this issue to a public vote.
I believe that we all can agree that our American political system of a democratic republic has proved to be an unparalleled success – no other government in the world has enjoyed the success that we have. Some may point to our vast natural resources as the source of our success; but many other countries have as much or more resources than we have and they’re less well off than we are, politically and economically (the two seem to go hand-in-hand.) I believe that our success with a democratic republic, where so many others have failed with various forms of democracy, is due to the foresight and vision of our founding fathers who built a very robust system based on the foundation of an educated populace. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” I know that John Adams agreed to universal suffrage (not counting women or minorities) only after the promise of universal education. I don’t have time to look up the particular citations – that’s an exercise for some evening at home on the internet.
Anyway, this particular bill, as passed by our legislature, has several major flaws. Following is a list that I can compose off the top of my head (and I’m an electrical engineer, not an educator):
1. It takes money out of public education. Even though the bill promises to match money given to private schools and give the same amount to public schools for a few years, ultimately that parallel funding stops and the public schools, already seriously underfunded, end up with even less. I am embarrassed that in Utah we spend less per pupil on education than in any other state, including Washington DC. We’re #51. Given that fact I shouldn’t have been surprised at the news this morning that Utah has the lowest rate in the country of students that go on to college after high school – I really would have thought that Mississippi or Arkansas would have held that distinction. Anyway, if you take a school system that is already underfunded and cut their funding even more, then you end up with either a joke of a public school system, like that I observed in Bolivia (where I lived with my family for four years) or a non-existent public school system, like that I observed in Bangladesh (where I lived with my family for three years.) Both of those countries had outstanding private schools for rich people, like where my children attended, but nothing for the common citizen. Accordingly, the ignorant populace who could only hold menial, minimum wage jobs, consistently democratically elected horrific candidates to office, who then pillaged and plundered at will. Is that the future we want for ourselves? Even if I’m rich enough to send my children to private schools (but I don’t, except when living overseas) I want the unwashed masses in my own country to be properly educated so that we can enjoy a functional society. Bolivia and Bangladesh are just two examples of an ignorant populace creating a dysfunctional democratic society – I’m sure we could come up with at least 100 more examples from around the world.
2. It raises costs to all of the taxpayers in the State. The parallel funding provision of this bill, even though it lasts for only a few years, will raise costs to all of us as taxpayers with no added value. It’s like investing in two parallel power lines where only one is needed to serve the load – it costs twice as much with no added value which is why power companies are regulated by a public service commission which designates a specific and exclusive service territory and then regulates the outcome as well as the costs.
3. It gives public money to private schools without any conditions. The argument about giving “public money to a private institution” like highway funds to a private contractor is a straw-man argument – that’s not the point. The point is that public schools are accountable to the funding agency, as are the highway paving contractors, whereas these private schools would not be. Read the bill and check it out. There are no provisions to ensure that our tax money would be spent on actual education, as opposed to a Caribbean vacation for the principal; there are no requirements for certified teachers, standardized test scores, “No Child Left Behind”, or any other standard to which we hold our public schools. If these private schools really could do a better job than our existing public school system, then our tax money should come with a host of conditions that have to be met. I’ve executed many US-government funded projects overseas worth many millions of dollars, and ALL of them came with a host of requirements – required outcomes, spending limitations, employee qualifications, salary caps, etc.
4. It only benefits the relatively wealthy. This bill doesn’t contemplate a “full-ride scholarship” for anyone, just a voucher for a fraction of the cost of private school tuition. That means that only rich people like myself can afford to jump ship and send our kids to subsidized private schools, leaving the rabble behind at the public schools, where they can fend for themselves. Since we know that the less wealthy in our society are over represented in the delinquency in our schools, this migration of the wealthy and motivated will ultimately lead to a downward spiral in our average education level that will take us down to the level of Bangladesh and Bolivia.
5. It doesn’t create any space in our private schools, which are already full. But, of course, the private sector will respond by building more private schools, which, not being regulated in any way, will be of dubious quality. I’ve seen this first-hand when my own family and friends have flocked to private schools to get away from the violent minorities flooding the public schools. These new private schools don’t attract certified teachers – here again I’ve seen myself when people, without so much as a college degree, jump from their jobs as night watchman to history teacher. I’ve seen kids who had a 5.0 GPA in their private schools not get admitted to a major university because their ACT or SAT scores were too low. That tells me something about the quality of education that they’re getting.
Now, all this isn’t to say that we DON’T need to fix our education system – I think it’s obvious that we do. Everyone knows that our schools are top-heavy with overpaid and underworked “administrators” – that needs to change and someone needs to do the hard job of deciding how to do it. I have a process for evaluating the administration of electric utilities that I’ve used in many countries around the world – someone in the education department could surely develop a similar process for a school district. Our teachers need to be valued and compensated at a level commensurate with their contribution to society – it’s an embarrassment that Utah values their teachers, and therefore education, lower than any other state in the Union. We need to find a legitimate way to evaluate teachers and weed out the gristle while retaining the meat. And most importantly of all, how do we make parents get involved in their children’s’ education? Talk to any school teacher and I’m confident that you’ll hear them tell you that their biggest problem with their students is absentee parents. I’m opposed to legislating parental involvement, just as I was opposed to legislating seat belts (although I wear mine faithfully), but we have to realize that parents relegating their parental responsibilities are a much bigger problem with our educational system than anything else.
Anyway, I’m not an education specialist so I haven’t formed a plan to solve all of these problems, but it’s obvious to me that something as simplistic as throwing our hands in the air and giving the private sector a shot at our money is not only wasteful, it’s lazy. For once, I’d like our elected officials to tackle a problem head-on instead of spending their time on the fluffy stuff (like declaring national peanut month or extending Daylight Savings Time – I wonder how long that took.)
As always, I’m open to suggestions and further discussion.
By the way, lacking a photo that pertains to school vouchers, I'm posting a photo of The Wave that I took on our last excursion out there.
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