Voucher Math

Some incredibly brilliant person wrote this letter to the editor that was printed in today's edition, and I just thought I'd reprint it here - with permission of the author, of course.

Pro-voucher advocates continue to refer to excess money left with public education for every student that leaves the system. The argument is that since the state spends some $5,000 per student and the voucher has a $3,000 maximum, that means, in worst case, that the schools are left with an extra $2,000. If my understanding of school funding is correct, then that $2,000 does not automatically stay in the system. Schools are funded by something called the Weighted Pupil Unit, a set amount of money per student in the public school system. That's where the $5,000 figure comes from and that number is set by the Utah Legislature. Pull a student out of the system and you pull the full WPU out of the system. So, even if the difference did end up going to the public schools, it would have to wait until the following year for the Legislature to increase the WPU, assuming they didn't find some road project or sports arena more compelling to fund. In addition to all the other assumptions you have to accept to support school vouchers, you also have to trust our Legislature in matters involving the public schools.

Personally, I'm not one that trusts them to do what's best for education.....

School Vouchers : You mean rich people from out of state won't be deciding for us?

Yup, the sad thing is we Utahns are going to have to decide for ourselves. Stupid Supreme Court. Taking the decision out of the hands of the lobbyists and legislators and putting it in the hands of the people. Bad Supreme Court! Naughty, naughty Zut, uh I mean Justices. (Let's not take that Freudian slip to fruition).

Front page of the Salt Lake Tribune : "Vouchers : You decide" In a somewhat unheard of turn of events, the Utah Supreme Court issued it's ruling the same day as it heard arguments. The November referendum WILL decide the fate of school vouchers in Utah; if the people of Utah vote against school vouchers it will kill BOTH bills passed by the legislature. None of this "well, you voted down the one bill, but by some quirky circumstances this second bill, passed just to fix things on the first bill, will stand on it's own and we will still implement the vouchers you voted against. Sorry about that folks."

Just in case my bias has not come through so far - I am against school vouchers. Not just because I'm a public school teacher, or because $3,000 isn't going to help a family of 6 living on $26,000 afford the $10,000 for private school tuition or because (this is a theory of my sisters' that I adopted) we could see a whole bunch of fly-by-night private schools pop up out of nowhere that will "educate" your students for little more than that $3,000. My main argument against school vouchers is that they are supposed to foster competition, but how can you have competition between to entities that play by different rules? Public schools have physical boundaries, in which we are required to take every student that resides there, regardless of their mental, physical, parental and economic capabilities. We cannot say "oh, sorry, our school is full, find some other place for your kid", we have to make the room somewhere. We have to provide services for the students that have special needs, we have to provide free lunches and other financial help for required fees to students that do not have the economic means to pay for them. Private schools may, and I know some do, give this extra support, but they are not required to do it. I could go on all day citing requirements on the public school system that give private schools the advantage in a competitive market, (other than cost, of course), but it boils down to the fact that because of state and federal regulations private and public schools do not play on a level field, giving private schools the overall advantage. Which is why people are willing to pay the tuition in the first place - private schools are less encumbered by the distractions inherent in public schools.

There's your topic - discuss.