Parents for Choice in Education break the Ninth Commandment

From the Parents for Choice in Education Newsletter:

Choice opponents' situational ethics don't stop there. The education establishment continues to use public resources, paid for by your tax dollars, in their campaign to take choice away from Utah parents.

This week in the "launch" of their campaign, opponents of parental choice drove a Salt Lake School District bus across three counties.

Fact: The bus Utahns for Public Schools used was privately owned.

I guess not baring false witness only matters on Sundays, eh Doug.

Vouchers have not helped students learn

Eric Jacobson has done his reserch. What is his conclusion?

Conclusion: Voucher programs have demonstrated almost no academic benefits in other places. Will Utah be different?

Read the Standard Examiner's: Vouchers have not helped students learn

Hat tip: Education in Utah

Utah Voucher Referendum: Part II

Parents for Choice: Rhetoric vs. Reality

Chairman Wayne Holland Jr. just made a great point about the voucher referendum petition while being interviewed by The Deseret News.

If Parents for Choice truly believes that a majority of Utahns support vouchers based on their slanted poll, then they should be assisting Utahns for Public Schools to put the issue before the people of Utah, and allow Utahns to put this issue to bed once and for all. Instead it seems that they would rather continue to use Utah as an ongoing laboratory for right wing think tanks.

Unfortunately their rhetoric does not match reality. They claim Utahns support their issue, but at the same time they seem to fear bringing Utah citizens to the ballot box.

If they are so confidant that the majority of Utahns support vouchers then why are they spending so much money on their rhetoric in their attempt to take away the voters of Utah constitutional rights to be equals with the legislature?

One might ask, what are they really afraid of?

Bob Van Velkinburg Says: Utah has the best legislators that money can buy

Hopefully, within the next few weeks someone will contact you and ask you to sign a referendum petition to repeal HB148.

Sign it!

HB148 is the legislation recently passed in the last session that would use taxpayer money for parents who want to send their children to private schools. It is not my purpose to discuss here the many things that are bad about vouchers but I would like to zero in on this question.

Why would so much money be spent on this voucher issue? It is estimated that almost $500,000 was spent by people and organizations who favor vouchers.

Even more curious is why would an organization based in Wisconsin called "All Children Matter" want to spend $290,000 of their money to support this issue in Utah? Of course this organization is heavily funded by the Wal-Mart and Amway Heirs but what dog do they have in this fight?

Then there is the local Utah organization called "Parents for Choice." They paid back the Republican Party $70,000 for the cost of their dirty tricks flyers. Another $110,000 in direct contributions to their candidates. Parents For Choice PAC shelled out $58,000 to their picked candidates. Another $58,000 to elect their School Board candidates.

So you can see why Utahns can say with some degree of pride, "We have the best Legislators that money can buy."

Go to www.utahnsforpublicschools.org for more information.

Bob Van Velkinburgh

Deseret News: Voucher issue up to voters? Most Utahns say they'd sign referendum petition

By Tiffany Erickson
Deseret Morning News

Over two-thirds of Utahns say they would sign a petition that would allow voters to overturn the state's new school voucher system.

Deseret Morning News graphic In a new Dan Jones & Associates poll conducted for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV, 70 percent of those surveyed said they would most likely sign the petition. And 55 percent said they would vote against vouchers.

"We have always believed the majority of people don't want vouchers, and the more they understand them the more that will be true," said Pat Rusk, spokeswoman for Utahns for Public Schools and former Utah Education Association president.

The voucher law, referred to as the Parents for Choice in Education Act, provides Utah families with a private school tuition voucher ranging from $500 to $3,000 per student attending a private school, based on parents' income. But opponents, including Utahns for Public Schools, don't want state funding going to private schools.

The poll of 418 Utahns, conducted March 7 and 8, has a 5 percent margin of error.
Last week leaders from the newly formed Utahns for Public Schools applied for a referendum petition that could put the final decision on vouchers into the hands of voters during the general election in 2008, in the hopes of voting the law down.

Even so, Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, who was the sponsor of the voucher bill, said that once the public has a better understanding of what the bill actually does, many of those who are currently opposed to it will most likely warm up to the idea.

"A lot of people don't understand exactly what the bill does," Urquhart said. "As we get closer to a referendum vote, the details will be flushed out — when people learn the specifics of legislation that was passed, they get more comfortable with it."

But Utahns for Public Schools are banking on just the opposite and said that as the public starts to further understand the specifics in the bill the numbers of Utahns in opposition will grow.
Deseret Morning News graphic About 17,000 petitions went out this week, and Utahns for Public Schools has 40 days to gather more than 92,000 signatures. Rusk said there has been an overwhelming response and petitions have already started coming back in.

But this week some lawmakers said the school voucher law would remain in effect even if a referendum against the measure succeeds and voters reject the law, since an amendment bill that wasn't targeted would remain on the books.

Lawmakers said the amendment bill, HB174, could stand alone, since the "heart and soul" of the voucher bill is also written in the amendment.

Voucher opponents disagree, saying it would be impossible to implement a voucher program with the fragments of another bill that boosts funding for the program.

"I think it's an attempt not to allow the people to have a voice on this because (voucher supporters) know it will be voted down," Rusk said.

Leaders said that matter would most likely be decided by the courts.
"This is going to be the most interesting public policy debate in the in state of Utah in the past 10 years," said Ric Cantrell, chief deputy of the Utah Senate.

For more information about the referendum petitions, visit www.utahnsforpublicschools.org.