Salt Lake Tribune

Referendum 1 debate

Eyre uses Oreos to pitch school vouchers

October 17, 2007

By Lisa Schencker

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7200159

Nabisco never foresaw this.
Oreos returned to the political spotlight Tuesday during a Salt Lake City Rotary Club voucher debate where opponents and advocates again used the cream-filled cookies as a symbol of education funding.
Author and former gubernatorial candidate Richard Eyre stacked the cookies to show how a voucher system would give parents choices and leave extra money in public schools. Kim Burningham, Utah State Board of Education chairman and voucher opponent, showed a picture of a cookie cracked down the middle to demonstrate that Eyre's metaphor oversimplifies costs.
If Referendum 1 passes in November, all Utah families would eventually be eligible for $500 to $3,000 per student per year in voucher money toward private school tuition, depending on income.
The two debaters argued mostly about whether vouchers would be a clean, simple solution or a complex mess. Eyre argued a voucher system would benefit parents and public schools.
He stacked seven cookies on the podium. Each cookie represented $1,000, with the whole stack representing roughly how much the state spends on the average public school student. He then took three cookies, or $3,000, from the stack.
"Four thousand dollars is still in the public school system," Eyre said. "No matter how many complexities we throw out there, those are the simplicities, the core."
Burningham said it's not that straightforward.
"I wish education financing were simple," Burningham said, "but it's very complex."
Just because a child leaves a school, he said, doesn't mean all the school's costs go down. He said public schools that lose students also lose the federal money that comes with them. Schools would also still have to pay for capital outlay costs, costs such as salaries for janitors and teachers and special education students, who can cost several times more to educate than typical students.
Burningham said ultimately vouchers would cost $429 million over 13 years, which would exceed any savings.
Financial adviser and Rotary Club member Dave Luke said he came to the debate undecided but left in support of vouchers. Luke said he was especially convinced by Eyre's argument that higher education in the U.S. is like a voucher system in that students can get aid and grants from the government and then take that money to any college.
"I like how this is not about private versus public," Luke said. "It's about choice."
Burningham countered during the debate that unlike Utah's proposed voucher system, Pell Grants for higher education are only given to those in need and have to be taken to an accredited institution.
Rotary Club member Linda Bonar said she thought both sides did well, but the Oreo argument did nothing to sweeten her view on vouchers. She's still against them.
"I'm still concerned about the fuzzy math involved," Bonar said.
lschencker@sltrib.com