KSL

Pro-Voucher Parents Speak Out Against Anti-Voucher Ads

October 12, 2007

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=1962833
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Randall Jeppesen and Richard Piatt Reporting

The battle over school vouchers is heating up once again, and some private school parents are speaking out about some of the anti-voucher ads.

Those ads portray vouchers as benefiting only rich families, and private school parents the ads need a closer look.

At St. Francis Xavier Regional School in Kearns, Catia Cook held a pro-voucher sign saying her family works double shifts so they can send their kids to school here. "With this voucher program, [it] will help us a lot," she said.

Cook and other parents admit they choose to send their children to private schools, and they sacrifice to do it. What these families don't like are ads they say are just unfair.

One such television commercial says, "Most of our students come from everyday families who can't afford private schools even if they wanted to try school vouchers." This group of parents is offended at implications that only rich families will take advantage of school vouchers.

The voucher would be a means-based benefit parents can apply to some private schools. These families say they're not rich, and are everyday people doing what it takes to pay for private school. "All we want is some help. We're not interested in a free ride. We're interested in some help. Sometimes all the sacrificing a family can do isn't enough. Vouchers will help a lot," parent Richard Green said.

But Lisa Johnson, spokesperson for Utahns for Public Schools, says it's not that simple. "It's important to understand the relative amount of the voucher compared to the average tuition. We want people to know that. There will be people who won't be able to come up with that amount of money, and it will probably be a large number of families," she said.

Another issue brought up at today's rally was that the pro-voucher group says it's hearing about an e-mail sent out by another group saying they would pay motivated individuals for going out and securing votes in favor of vouchers.

Parents for Choice in Education spokesperson Leah Barker says she hasn't seen the e-mail. "We're not really affiliated with the group," Barker said.

The Free Capitalist Project has since sent out a retraction saying their e-mail misrepresents their efforts, and they would never pay people to vote.

Of course, the basic philosophical difference between the pro- and anti-voucher camps is money. Should the money that's going to the voucher program be tossed in the public education pot, or devoted to parents who want to choose private schools?

That's the choice voters have to make in November, and it's still a confusing choice for a lot of people.