I was going to write my own opinion on AG Shurtleff's lame defense for his flawed legal advice to the Utah State School Board, as well as his criticism of those who actually understand the law, as well as Rep Craig Frank's out-right dishonest statement about the Utahns who gathered the referendum signatures, but Jeremy statement on his blog Jeremy's Jeremiad has already addressed both statements appropriately.
From Jeremy's blog:
From Jeremy's blog:
Mark Shurtleff wrote today about the unanimous Supreme Courtdecision contridicting his legal advice to the State Board of Education. I don’t begrudge Mr. Shurtleff his chance to publicly defend his actions but for him to come out criticizing those who didn’t follow his obviously flawed legal arguments is pretty lame.
Rep. Craig Frank laud’s the AG’s attempt to defend his actions and almost accuses voucher opponents of lying to get petition signatures for the referendum:
"I (Rep. Frank) don’t think I’ve spoken with a single individual who signed the petition (or would have signed it) that is[n’t] seriously reconsidering their actions and their vote. You see, many of them feel they were “coerced” or “lied to.”Check out Jeremy's post, Do What I Say! Even When I’m Obviously Wrong!
Pretty lame stuff. I’m sure glad most Utahns aren’t really as dumb as many Republicans assume we are.
3 comments:
Thanks for the shout out Rob!
I hope all you guys at Utah Amicus had a great Independence day!
Hi Jeremy,
Great comments.
Forgive the cross-post, but I've copied my response to Rep. Frank here since he moderates his comments and there's a chance it won't get published:
Rep. Frank,
Utahns for Public Schools gathered signatures professionally and respectfully. People can see right through your attempts to discredit those who have chosen to place the question of private school entitlements to a public vote. At a personal level it is somewhat insulting that you would make these unfounded accusations. From a policy perspective, such ad hominem attacks do little to advance the debate.
You casually forget that the State Board's legal advisors actually got it right. But rather than congratulate them for a job well done, you and AG Shurtleff are perhaps allowing ego and party loyalty to get in the way of objective analysis. I suppose, he, too, could use your excuse that the Utah Supreme Court is simply legislating from the bench (say *that* with a straight face about our conservative justices). But that might be a stretch even for the most die-hard of loyalists to swallow.
The facts are clear - the voucher bill is an ideologically divisive piece of legislation that, ironically, interferes with natural market forces. Conservatives of all political flavors are opposed to such intrusions. There is nothing stopping the creation and expansion of a robust private school market in Utah. If consumers desire to use private schools they have every right to do so. If educators or entrepeneurs wish to create such opportunities there is nothing stopping them. We don't need to force the creation of an additional entitlement program as this only increases the size of government.
One of the fundamental arguments used by voucher supporters is that competition will improve opportunities for all students. Sure, the concept is great. However, the actual implementation to create a healthy competitive environment needs some serious examination. In previous voucher experiments such as that in New Zealand, a strange side-effect has taken place. Rather than "killing off" the failing schools, the voucher program has simply made such schools worse as greater numbers of difficult-to-teach children have been concentrated into these schools. This has forced the NZ government to step in and provide remediation and assistance, against their original plans and their philosophy of laissez-faire governance. Although some schools have improved, other schools have declined, with the net gain/loss being close to zero. Their voucher program has created a racial and societal redistribution (in my mind, anti-American) but has done nothing to improve overall school performance.
In Utah, where 96% of children attend Utah public schools (the highest in the nation), even top wage-earners who have the discretionary income necessary to choose any private school are happy with what's going on in our public schools. Fully 85% of top wage-earning households send their children to public schools. Do these affluent households really need a $500 per child entitlement to "lure" them away?
I addressed the funding argument in a previous blog post found here. You may win the funding argument because the intracacies (or minutiae as you say) will likely be of interest to a smaller minority of voters. With that said, though, I find strong evidence (as per my blog post) that vouchers will take funding from public schools as a dollar committed to vouchers is a dollar that higher ed must then go fetch from the uniform school fund (the 5-year bribe notwithstanding).
I also addressed some additional flaws in the bill in my post entitled 100 Unintended Consequences of HB148. In fairness, HB174 did address 3 or 4 of these problems so some progress was made there.
I believe the facts will show that HB148 does little to recommend itself as a serious policymaking instrument. As a fiscal conservative, I respect many of the philosophies behind the bill. But the bill itself is deeply flawed. I am much more in favor of other decentralization vehicles such as backpack funding and charter schools. Let's devote our time and attention to these worthy initiatives while allowing private schools to flourish without unnecessary government intrusion.
Take care.
Thanks...Craig.
I found Rep. Frank's comments offensive and boorish. To summarily dismiss 130,000 people and their signatures is not just somewhat insulting; it's very much so. Honestly, how can someone lob such insults and then call for "reasonable dialogue" with a straight face.
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