Reasoned thoughts against vouchers

Good folks in Utah have been blasted by arguments for and against school vouchers. I've been in search of some good, reasoned arguments and have found these that I commend to readers.

The first is an editorial by KSL-TV that argues against vouchers based on some solid thinking about re-directing tax dollars:

The KSL Editorial Board has thoughtfully considered the views presented by opponents and proponents of school vouchers, and has come to the conclusion that a broad taxpayer supported voucher system should not be implemented in Utah.

Our opposition to vouchers boils down to a fundamental question: Is Utah's public school system broken and in such disarray that doing something as radical and unproven as directing precious tax dollars toward private schools, many of them parochial, the answer?

We think not!

It is not a question of school choice since parents already have a variety of options in Utah. Any parent who so chooses can send a child to a private school, or a charter school, or a different public school! School choice is not the issue!

A vote against vouchers must not be interpreted as a vote for the status quo. Make no mistake about it, there's plenty of room for improvement. Still, contemplate what could be accomplished if the energy that has been directed at vouchers could be redirected toward implementing reasoned, effective and adequately funded reforms in the tried and tested public school system.

In KSL's view, that's where the focus of Utahns ought to be. Let's reject vouchers and work toward making changes that will benefit all Utah children for generations to come.


Here is a link to the editorial.

The second informational thinking I came across was from a blog. This rationale posits that the arguments that voucher supporters are using simply isn't logical, especially when one really sits down to do the math.

I quote here from just part of the blog by a Tim Panogos, but strongly recommend you read it in its entirety here.

"Benefits from vouchers, for the public and the taxpayer, accrue only after a significant portion of students transfer out of public schools, and then only if they do it in the next five years. That’s not going to happen. In the 30-second “Oreo” commercial, there is talk of two or three students transferring to private schools from one class. That’s only 10 percent of a 30-pupil class. Projections are that much less than 10% of students will move.

"If we got a 10% transfer, the additional money available to the public school is too small to do much good — certainly it will never prevent a tax increase — and the class size reduction takes the class size from unmanageable to slightly less unmanageable. Education Department studies done in the 1980s showed achievement in classrooms increasing measurably only when class size got below 18 students per class, and significantly improving only when class size got below 15 students per class.

"To get classroom size reductions enough to help out, then, we’d have to get half the students in public schools to move to private schools. An exodus of 275,000 students is simply not in the cards.

"And if that many students tried to move, it would bust the bank for vouchers. But of course, there are not enough private schools in the state to accommodate even 27,000 new students, let alone ten times that many.

"So benefits from vouchers only obtain with an impossibly large transfer of students out of the public schools, far more than budgeted for, far more than possible under any rational projection.

"This referendum is a lot of clucking for so small an egg.

"More likely, public schools along Utah’s Wasatch Front — and nowhere else in the state, because private schools are simply not available — will see less than a 1% transfer for vouchers. Poor students may try, but they will be unable to enroll in private schools without significant scholarships to make up the shortfall between the voucher and the actual tuition and fees, which are significantly more than vouchers in almost every case.

"School crowding will continue to be a crisis, as will teacher recruitment and retention. But the public, tired of these fruitless shouting matches, will not stand for the tax increases necessary to raise teacher salaries and recruit more teachers."