Why I'm Opposed to School Vouchers

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.

Our Family Trip to Disneyland

Annie writes:

Day One: getting there just as the park opened, we were able to hear, though not see, the opening "ceremonies" to the park. First off we all ran to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The line was relatively short and we were able to go through twice in a row. There were new additions of movie elements, including several Captain Jack Sparrows. After, we went on the Haunted Mansion ride with a new room (for us) with a psychotic bride who went around murdering her husbands. After that we went to Little Thunder Railroad where we learned some very interesting, and helpful information regarding fast-passes that we continued to use throughout the trip. We got in line behind a mother (from Tucson, Arizona) with her two small children and we got to chatting. Apparently she had gone to Disneyland several times with school groups, and Disneyland employees are a bit more helpful to large groups. Apparently, even though there is a recommended time for fast-pass use, you don't actually have to use them during this time. Lines are still long with fast-passes, but certainly shorter than trying to go through the other way, so this was very valuable information indeed. Speaking of lines, in a vague sort of way, going through the Indiana Jones line became surprisingly entertaining. On our way in we noticed a great deal of writing on the walls in several places. At one point, when the line was particularly troublesome, CJ and Mom noticed that the writing somehow resembled regular English characters and, being the strange people we are, proceeded to decipher it. We pretty much translated that portion, but some of the characters were pretty ambiguous and we didn't complete the alphabet on the first run through. Second time round, however, I managed to notice something. One paragraph of hieroglyphics particularly stood out on the way into the ride, being painted on the wall instead of chiseled into the stone, and slightly set apart from the main text, but given its own light. On the way out there was another sign painted on a wooden sign in English, and from what we had been able to translate from that they were the same message. So now we had a key. After that we pretty much were able to translate any messages we came across, which made standing in the long line into the line relatively enjoyable. On the other hand it became slightly difficult to exit the ride without running into a paragraph of text we just had to translate. We tried just about every ride that first day and stayed pretty late and saw the Princess Parade at the end of the day. We left the park and ate a very late supper at Denny's and decided that it wasn’t any cheaper than just eating in the park itself.

Day Two: On day two we had planned on getting up early, but were just too worn out. Instead we got there at the normal time and did a couple of quick rounds on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. Over the course of the day we caught all of the rides we’d missed the day before and took another round on our favorites. When it got dark, the park started emptying out, and lines started getting shorter, particularly in Fantasyland. In fact, except for Peter Pan, the rides were actually short! At the very end of the day we caught the last ride of the night on It's a Small World – we walked right on. Plus we got our own boat. As we rode from room to room, we amused ourselves with “Been there. Been there. Need to go there.” When we got out we were treated to a special sight, the giant clock on the front of the ride opened up as it struck eleven, and representatives from around the world all came out and paraded to the theme song.

Day Three: On our last day at Disneyland we finally managed to get up early. Unfortunately the only land that was open at that point was Tomorrowland. So we split up – the kids taking a spin on Space Mountain and the folks going on Buzz Lightyear. Over the course of the day we hit our favorite rides one last time. Since we had a long drive home, we left the park early – while the sun was still up. On our way out of the park, I decided I really wanted to stop by Snow White’s wishing well. At the well I dropped in two pennies that I had picked up around. After the second penny hit bottom something clicked, and the Snow Whites statue on the left sang a duet with the well – they went on to sing the whole duet that Snow White sings in the movie. After that my Disneyland experience was complete. In our drive home we hit the infamous LA traffic – it took us twice as long to get home as it did to drive down in the first place. We arrived home a little after 1:00 AM.

Dad's thoughts: Disneyland has changed a bit in the five years since we were last there. In fact, my favorite ride was the new (to me) Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride where you get to steer your own little vehicle and shoot a laser blaster and rack up points by hitting targets – we got up to level 4 and it didn’t make me motion sick even once (unlike Space Mountain or California Screamin’.) Also, just for something new, our resident cryptographer (Mom, who does the daily newspaper Cryptoquote, Sudoku, and crossword puzzle) and her two assistants (CJ & Annie) deciphered the exotic “language” on the walls of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride. For our three day stay there in Anaheim, we lodged at a one star hotel just across the street – we were in our rooms for less than 8 hours a night, so we felt no need to spend more money on a place to sleep.

Car thief in St. George

St. George is no longer a small town - we're starting to experience those “big city” problems. We even had a little excitement at my work this past month – in fact, it was the most excitement I’ve had since moving back to the States: on the morning of the 25th I noticed out my office window (my office window overlooks the garden area between my company’s two office buildings) that we had a transient loitering around – a skinny kid in dreadlocks, jeans, and purple tee-shirt. He only kept my attention for a minute because we’re close enough to the freeway that we get quite a few travelers who get off the highway and stretch their legs (and their dogs’) in our garden area. But then, a few minutes later I heard our metering department guys talking to the receptionists in the front office about a vehicle parked in our lot (the metering office overlooks the parking lot) which got my attention. I figured I’d better find out what was happening since my whole department (except me) was out in the field surveying. The metering guys were wondering whose car was the grey car. I told them that it was my staking engineer’s car. They told me that if that was the case, then they’d inadvertently interrupted a thief who was attempting to hotwire it. They hadn’t recognized the car, and when they saw the kid fiddling under the dashboard they assumed that he had mechanical problems and needed some help. When they went out to offer a hand they’d startled our would-be thief and so he took off, which made them suspicious. As we compared notes enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together, we spotted the kid over by the gas station by the freeway. So, while one guy called the police, three of us went to see if we could catch and hold him. After searching the gas station with no luck, a couple drove up in a car and asked us if we were looking for a particular kid, because he was trying to hotwire a car in the shopping center across the street. So our NFL-sized meterman took off running, and our Operations Manager/cowboy and I hopped in his pickup (which had the keys still in the ignition) and drove over. I surmised that the Walmart on the next block would make a tempting smorgasbord of unattended cars, so we headed that way. Along the way we spotted our suspect, ducking into the courtyard of the shopping center – I told Andy to drive to the other side and block the exit and got on the radio and called the office to direct the police our way. Sure enough, as we waited at the exit of the courtyard, our man came walking out, spotted us, hesitated, flashed us the black-power fist from the 70’s (Andy returned with the cowboy nod, which never fails to intimidate me), and he turned and fled. Just then a policeman pulled up behind us and we directed him into the courtyard. He took off running and we heard him holler “Stop!” I told Andy that with us blocking the north exit and Efraím coming from the south, the kid would certainly run out the open east side, so we drove that way. Sure enough, as we got to that end of the shopping center, the kid and policeman and Efraím squirted out the end just ahead of us (proving that you can run faster through a crowded shopping center than you can drive through a crowded parking lot.) The kid made it to a heavily landscaped realty office next door, losing his pursuers, so Andy and I drove into the adjoining church parking lot to make sure he didn’t come out the far side. Just then about half a dozen cop cars came rolling up, the officers jumped out and drew their pistols. Andy agreed with me that this was a good time to stay in the truck. Soon enough one of the employees at the realty office pointed out the kid hiding in the bushes and he was soon taken into custody. I called my staking engineer back from Arizona, and he found that his car’s doors and ignition had been severely damaged by a sharp instrument (turned out to be scissors borrowed from our neighboring dentist’s office) in the theft attempt. After giving our reports to the police they informed us that our thief was a 15-year-old runaway from Southern California who’d crashed a stolen car in the Virgin River Gorge (a particularly treacherous stretch of highway just south of us) that morning, and was brought up to our freeway exit by a helpful truck driver. Apparently he was still headed north and needed some new wheels when he was inadvertently foiled by our friendly over-helpful metering guys. Whew! That was a lot of excitement for our little southern Utah town.

Note: Having failed to take any photos during the pursuit of our would-be car thief, I've decided to include a photo of the nearby Leeds Arch, which we climbed up and then rappelled off of. I've got to say, I found the free-climb up the sometimes sheer cliff considerably more intimidating than 175 foot rappel down. And yes, I burned myself again on the hot figure-8 – at least it was on the arm this time and not on my neck like last time (it itched like the dickens as it healed.) If you look closely you can just make out our group at the base of the arch on the south (left) side.

Trip to the Hobgoblin

We made a very scenic 4-wheeler ride/hike with our buddies, Robert and Palma, and some new buddies, Rod and Michele, down into south-eastern Nevada, around the northern shores of Lake Mead. We turned off the freeway between Mesquite and Logandale and headed south on the back roads for 24 miles, where we parked the trucks and broke out the 4-wheelers. From there we headed out on 4-wheelers for about 4 miles into the rocks, where we enjoyed about a dozen different panels of lovely petroglyphs (let me know if you want to see photos.) Then back to the parking area and on for another 8 miles to the “Devil’s Throat” – a big round hole in the ground out in the middle of the desert, which is actually visible on the satellite photos on Google Earth. After throwing a bunch of rocks down into the hole (what else were we going to do?) we headed up the wash for another 8 miles to an area of amazing natural sandstone sculptures called the “Hobgoblin” – some of the most amazing natural formations I’ve ever seen (let me know if you want to see photos - see above for a small sample.) And then, since we were so close, we buzzed another 8 miles over to where we could see the marina at Overton, high and dry on the drought diminished Lake Mead. Then it was back the way we came, and home again home again for a full day’s adventure. Whew! Safe and sound, excepting some mild sunburn and sand abrasion in the eyes. I marked the whole route on my GPS so I could go back again some day if the opportunity arose.

Coyote Buttes South

We took the day to make a scenic hike with our buddies, Robert and Palma, around the Coyote Buttes South, which are just south of the “Wave” (formally Coyote Buttes North) in the Paria Canyon, in the Vermillion Cliffs wilderness area in Northern Arizona, between Kanab, Utah, and Page, Arizona. The hike requires tickets, which are hard to come by, but which limited the visitors to just ourselves that day. It was a long-ish rough drive, but a fairly easy walk around with wonderful scenery (let me know if you want to see pictures - see sample above.) I highly recommend this hike if you’re ever in the area.

And for those of you still interested, Bolivia has gone from bad to worse: their new socialist president, Evo Morales, signed a law confiscating 77,000 square miles of private property (an area the size of Nebraska) down in the lowlands of Bolivia to give to the poor Indians from the highlands. The vast majority of Congress had walked out of the legislative session to protest the ramrodding of the bill, but the remaining minority “passed” it anyway (without a quorum), and the president signed it. In doing this Evo has ignored the disastrous results of every other government land redistribution program in the history of the world (including Bolivia’s own debacle back when.) The landowners from the lowlands have vowed to protect their lands with arms and violence and are appealing to Brazil to annex them. I foresee a bloody civil war in Bolivia’s near future. And Bolivia’s master, Venezuela, is faring little better. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, is up for a mock election this coming Sunday and has openly stated that it’s impossible for him to lose – well of course it is – Venezuelans can only vote (or use the national banking system) if they’re a card-carrying member of Chavez’s party. Look for Bolivia to implement those same party restrictions in their upcoming new constitution.

Canyoneering in Southern Utah

It hasn’t been all work and no play for the Jacks this summer, however dull we’ve been. Thanks to our good friend and neighbor Robert, who serves as our guide and covers all of the logistics, we’ve also taken a few Saturday morning hike/rappels through the slot canyons in and around our local national park, Zion Canyon. We’ve hit our old favorites – Birch Hollow, Fat Man’s Misery, Key Hole, and Pine Creek, as well as some new favorites – Kanaraville Canyon, Echo Canyon, Chasm, Englestead Hollow, and Spry Canyon. We’ve done all this hiking with only a few of slight casualties – like when CJ got one foot caught on a scramble down a boulder and then fell headfirst about 8ft and caught himself on his hands injuring his right wrist, or when Annie got a lock of her hair caught in her rappelling gear (the “figure 8”) when only about 15 feet down a 100 foot free-hanging rappel (she now has just a hint of bangs,) or when I inadvertently let my red-hot “figure 8” (after a particularly long hot rappel) touch my neck, branding me for life (is there such a thing as a 4th degree burn?). Our latest adventure, the Englestead Hollow hike, was a new “high” for us – it started out with a 300 foot rappel down into the canyon, followed by a series of shorter rappels, scrambles, and plain jumps, capped off by a long hike out through Orderville Canyon and then the Zion Narrows – all told it was a good solid 9 miles spread out over 9 hours of hiking. You can read the technical details of most of these hikes at the following website: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-national-park-canyoneering.htm.

The attached photo is of me rappelling down that first long (300 foot) wall into Englestead Hollow.