Colorado Springs Gazette

Battleground Utah:  Beehive state's voucher program has teachers unions swarming

September 25, 2007

URL: http://www.gazette.com/opinion/school_27676___article.html/state_utah.html

An escalating battle over the future of a statewide school voucher program in Utah may seem of only passing interest to Coloradans, except for the fact that teachers’ dues from Colorado (among other states) are helping bankroll the anti-voucher forces. The situation also underscores our contention that hide-bound teachers unions are the single biggest impediment to educational innovation and opportunity in the country.

Education reform may be dead in the water in Colorado (and actually is in danger of a rollback, with Democrats in charge), but not every state is standing still. Utah earlier this year took a bold step forward when the legislature and governor approved the most far-reaching statewide voucher program in the nation, handing parents between $500 and $3,000 (depending on incomes) that they can apply to the school of their choice, including a private school. This not only empowers parents to shop around for the best educational value they can get, but it forces schools to improve and to compete, or risk losing these customers.

A more modest program was attempted a number of years ago in Colorado, only to be tossed out by judges on the specious grounds that it violated the state constitution’s insistence on “local control” of schools. Teachers unions bankrolled that legal challenge — just as they are pulling out all the stops to kill Utah’s program.

Utah’s constitution obviously isn’t an obstacle to vouchers. The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutionality of such programs elsewhere. That state’s legislators and governor support it. But the teachers unions, terrified that other states might follow Utah’s lead, have put a measure on the ballot aimed at overturning the program and are pouring money into the effort. The issue will be decided Nov. 6.

The National Education Association in the past three weeks gave $1.5 million to anti-voucher forces, according to the latest campaign finance records. And it’s prepared to spend double that amount, according to published reports. The Colorado Education Association has pitched in another $5,000 (as have unions in Ohio, Maine and Wyoming).

Pro-voucher forces also are expected to spend some money, in order to even the odds a bit. But for now, most of the money is flowing to the anti-voucher side. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican who backs vouchers, isn’t surprised his state is becoming a magnet for so much out-of-state money. “If this issue didn’t have national ramifications, it wouldn’t have people (in other states) weighing in.”

It remains to be seen whether the anti-school choice reactionaries can spend their way to a victory. The great equalizer, we hope, will be Utah’s parents, who value the wider educational options and opportunities such a program provides. It’s their school system, after all, not the NEA’s.

All we who rooted for a similar program in Colorado can do is sit back and watch, somewhat wistfully, as a neighboring state becomes the battleground, and Colorado a backwater, in the struggle for better public schools.