UTAH VOTE NOTES 2006
GOP Candidates Remain Vague When it Comes to School Vouchers
By Tracy Medley, 11-02-06
Why don't Utah's GOP candidates want to talk about private school vouchers? It could have something to do with the money many have received from a group, fascinatingly called Parents for Choice…in Education.While some candidates have openly endorsed the voucher program, most are trying to keep their position strictly on the down low. But, any political wonk worth their salt knows that private school vouchers are unpopular with voters and there are plenty of polling results to back that notion…however, candidates must be careful not to bite the hand that feeds them.
According to an article in The Salt Lake Tribune, Sandy Thackeray, the Republican candidate in the race for House District 37, which encompasses the Murray, Holladay and Midvale communities has recently gotten vague as to her stance on private school vouchers.
Thackeray, who was once vocal about opposing vouchers, has now taken to defining her stance this way, "I would not vote for anything I haven't seen. I'm not pro-voucher, and I'm not anti-voucher." Um, Okay?
And this phenomenon is not unique to Thackeray, The Tribune reports that "dozens" of GOP candidates have received substantial funding from Parents for Choice, leading many of them to remain hazy when confronted with the subject by voters.
[End of article]
Tracey: an interesting exercise is to take the names of the directors and staff of Parents for Choice and run them through Internet search engines, by themselves and then later with such key words as conservative, Republican, education, etc. Or run the names through http://www.opensecrets.org and see who they donate money to in political campaigns. Invariably, you'll find voucher advocates to be associated with far-right, even extreme-right political and social causes. Further investigation should also reveal a real antipathy against public education and especially teacher unions.
Why? Well, the theory is that voucher and many charter school advocates are such ardent conservatives that they oppose any and all bastions of either progressive/scientific thought or sources of money for progressive politicians -- thus their hostility to teachers, injury/liability lawyers, university educators, scientists and of course that big bugaboo, the liberal "drive-by" media.
If GOP candidates aren't willing to look this gift horse in the mouth, Utah citizens can and should do so for themselves. Remember, it is always worthwhile to follow the money and the connections in any political campaign.
Vouchers are a great thing and should be backed by everyone.
Vouchers cost the taxpayer about half of what the state pays to the public school saving the taxpayer money.
The public school complains that they loose the money the state gives them for the student but logically if the school no longer has the student, the school no longer needs the money to educate the student that is no longer there, a bogus argument by the school administrators.
Brodie outlined pretty well why we conservatives support vouchers. The National Teachers Association is a despicable social activism and political organization that effects social indoctrination in ways they shouldn’t, parents are teachers of life and shouldn’t be undermined by teachers of scholastics.
Utah politician probably don’t have the severity of the problem in their schools as the rest of the country because of the high Mormon population (even teachers) which makes the issue in Utah more ticklish as there likely isn’t the dire need as elsewhere. Actually, vouchers should be attractive to Utah’s secular/progressive immigrants to protect them from indoctrination by Utah’s Mormon teachers.
Because of the concerns of conservatives the number of home-schooled children has been rising for the last several years. In 2003, the last year for which figures are available, about 1.1 million students or 2.2 percent of children aged 5 through 17 were being home-schooled, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That's a 29 percent rise from 1999.
If the public schools want parents to keep their children in their schools, maybe they ought to go back to doing their jobs. Short of that be content with the savings to the state treasury that vouchers would create.
Not only in Utah is "protect them from indoctrination by .... Mormon teachers" a potential situation: Nevada has a disproportionately high percentage of Mormon teachers (and legislators, though since I don't live there any more I don't necessarily need to worry about that now.)
I spent 7 years in the public school system in Nevada, and my daughter did the whole "12 years minimum" there. "Indoctrination", while too harsh a word truthfully, still could be argued by those of other religious leanings - or none, as with myself and my daughter (though my husband is a "born and reared" Mormon, now on the "jack Mormon" side since he too can see the stupidity involved in slavishly adhering to any religion - not to mention allowing it free reign in classrooms, politics, government, etc.)
The voucher system needs to be implemented asap. The entire educational system should be privatized - and to start with, do NOT hire "tenured teachers". Hire those who can EDUCATE - which believe me does not mean having a degree of any sort....
I'll save my views on parents failing to parent for another post.... as well as my views on the separation of church and state (or in Utah, the lack thereof) - and the fact that the Mormon church is nothing more than a megacorp which pays no taxes....
Private school students still represent only 10 percent of elementary and secondary school students in the United States. And according to the National Center for Education Statistics, that percentage might grow to 13 percent by 2014 according to their projections.
Catholic parochial schools are the biggest component of the private school system, and they're in trouble because of the precipitous decline in nuns and priests, as well as lay people willing to teach for less money than they'd make in public schools.
Vouchers remain a symbolic bone tossed to parents, because where are they going to go, outside the public school system?
Interestingly, polls show that while many parents are upset with public education, they believe that their local public schools do a pretty good job. Frankly, public schools are far more accountable to parents than any private school. Private schools can and do tell troublesome parents to take a hike, whereas public schools can't.