Let's play another fun-filled round of "Dems vs. Repubs: Who Do They Really Represent?"

By a vote of 26 to 18 the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee on Oct. 31 approved far-reaching mine safety and health legislation known as the Supplementary Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2007 (S-MINER Act). It would help prevent mining disasters, improve emergency response when disasters do occur, and reduce long-term health risks, such as black lung disease, facing miners.

Utah Republican Rob Bishop, who theoretically represents Utah miners and their families on the committee, voted against it.

The miners who died in the Crandall Canyon mine collapse lived in Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson's 2nd District. Jim co-sponsored the S-MINER Act and sponsored a complementary bill that would promote research and development of miner tracking and communication technology. That bill passed in the House of Representatives on Oct. 29.

Several provisions in the bill are especially relevant to Utah miners and their families following the Crandall Canyon tragedy, such as:
• Improving tracking of miner location and communication with miners
• Keeping trapped miners alive
• Rescue operations
• Accident prevention
• Improvements in the investigatory process

Just for fun, can you identify who said the following and based on that determine how likely they would be to stand up for Utah miners and their families and vote to make this bill law?* (Scroll down for the answers.)

1. "56 miners have died"?
“Mining remains one of the most dangerous occupations in America, with a fatality rate more than seven times higher than the average for all private industries. So far this year, 56 miners have died on the job in the U.S. The legislation approved today, the Supplementary Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (S-MINER), builds on legislation signed into law in 2006 by addressing serious gaps in mine safety and health standards.”

2. "I want to know if mistakes were make"
"I'll continue to press for answers on behalf of the families and the coal mining community. I want to know if mistakes were made, how they can be corrected in the future, so that safety in Utah's coal mines can be enhanced.”

3. "We hope to prevent the appalling lost of life"
“With this legislation, we hope to prevent the appalling loss of life that we’ve had in the past couple of years – at Sago, Darby, Aracoma, and most recently Crandall Canyon in Utah.”

4. "Why, why"?
“Why did it take two hours for MSHA to be notified - two hours? And then why did it take six hours for rescue teams to arrive? Why is the rapid notification and response system not available? Shouldn't that mine have been closed with all those citations, all the breaking and wearing down and tearing down and easing the regulations? Why, why?"

The following exchange took place between Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and a WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN during one of the Crandall Canyon mine hearings in Washington, D.C.

5. "I know that you ... responded quite quickly"

WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN: Mr. Stickler, if I recall this correctly, between 1992 - and there were seismic events around there - but between 1992 and this tragedy, there were a limited number of bumps with small injuries, but there weren't any major injuries. Am I correct on that?
STICKLER: That's correct.

WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN: If I recall correctly, there were only about eight bumps in the mine itself.
STICKLER: Right. That's right. The majority of those that resulted in injury occurred on long wall mining sections.

WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN: And this was not a long wall.
STICKLER: That's correct.

WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN: I see. Now, I know that you and your team responded quite quickly to the events regarding the Crandall Canyon mine. Can you please just run through the major events that you oversaw upon arriving in Utah?
STICKLER: Well, like you said, I believe MSHA did respond very quickly.

WELL-KNOWN UTAH POLITICIAN: Right.

6. "I don't want ... (to) stop mining"
"I think people are quick to judge when you have a disaster like this, but as far as I can see from Mr. Stickler and others, they were using the best technology they could have. What I don't want is people getting extreme on this so we stop mining in Utah.”

7. "I appreciate the testimony"
"This is a significant issue for all of us, and I appreciate the testimony that's being heard, and, hopefully, we'll be able to continue this communication as time goes on …” just before telling survivors of Utah miners during a congressional hearing that he had a prior appointment and had to leave.

8. Against "useless or burdensome" rules
“I continue to push for the elimination of useless or burdensome government regulations that lengthen the process for implementing new safety systems.”

9. A no-show
A quotation from this person is not available because he did not sit in on any of the committees probing the disaster and hasn't participated in any of the hearings.

_________________________________

(ANSWERS: 1. Democrat George Miller, chair of the House Committee on Labor and Education, likely to help Utah miners; 2. Democrat Jim Matheson, Utah congressman, likely to help miners; 3. Democrat Lynn Woolsey, of California, likely to help miners; 4. Democrat Robert Byrd, senator from West Virginia, likely to help miners; 5. Republican Orrin Hatch, Utah's senior senator, likely to help mine owners; 6. Republican Orrin Hatch, Utah’s senior senator, likely to help mine owners; 7. Republican Rob Bishop, Utah congressman, likely to help mine owners; 8. Republican Chris Cannon, Utah congressman, likely to help mine owners; 9. Republican Chris Cannon, Utah congressman, likely to help mine owners)

* The quotations were published in The Salt Lake Tribune.

The voucher crowd calls for reinforcements. The professional activists parachute into Utah

The message is carefully crafted.

The press releases are sent to all the right media types.

The professional activists are flown in from out of state. They're staying at The Ritz. Where else?

Everything’s ready for another attack on them flippin’ anti-voucher educrats, spoilers of Our Man Milton's party.

Then ... well, I guess the stars just didn't line up for the good folks at The Sutherland Institute, Salt Lake City’s Fort Apache of conservative activism. (We can only hope the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars because that's when peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.)

Rebeca Nieves Huffman (whose job is to travel the country persuading people vouchers and such are good for Hispanics), Rep. Jason “I’m a Democrat” Fields (whose job is to travel the country persuading people vouchers and such are good for African-Americans), and Clint Bolick (whose job is to sue NEAites if the likes of Nieves Huffman and Fields only persuade people vouchers and such are good for nothing) have parachuted into town at the invitation of Sutherland. However, the message meisters in Milwaukee have messed with their landing.

A study released Tuesday in Milwaukee suggests school choice isn’t such a powerful tool for driving educational improvement after all.

POW!

That’s gotta hurt.

WHAM!

It was produced by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades - when Milwaukee became the nation’s premier center for testing the experiment.

SAY IT AIN’T SO!

“We had expected to find a wellspring of hope that increased parental involvement in the Milwaukee Public Schools would be the key ingredient in improving student performance," wrote George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute. But “there are realistic limits on the degree to which parental involvement can drive market-based reform.”

ET TU HOWARD?

One of the most ardent supporters of school choice in Milwaukee has backed away from advocacy of the purest version of the idea – in which there is little government oversight of schools and parental decisions in a free market dictate which schools thrive, according to Alan J. Borsuk writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Howard Fuller, head of the school-choice apologist group Black Alliance for Educational Options housed at something called the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University in Milwaukee and an ally of Rep. Jason “I’m a Democrat” Fields, has changed his tune. He now believes that strong government oversight of voucher schools is needed, according to Borsuk’s report.

Asked whether the voucher program was leading to improvements in the achievement of students in Milwaukee, as was once expected, Fuller said: “I'm one of those people who believes that we may have oversold that point. . . . I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn't been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) that we would have thought.”

Did KSL-TV's "Truth Test" pass the truth test in its report on voucher advertising ?

Richard Piatt of KSL-TV aired a report on Oct. 17 titled "Truth Test: School Voucher Ads Deciphered." Republican Ric Cantrell promoted the report on the Utah Senate blog as coming from someone "without a dog in the fight." But it didn't seem to jibe with parts of H.B 148. Maybe I misunderstood the law. So I wrote Mr. Piatt, hoping he would clear up a few things.

Here is an edited version of the e-mail exchange:

__________________________________________________

Subject: A few thoughts on "truth in advertising"

Richard,

This is for your "For What It's Worth" file: A few thoughts on the "truth-in-advertising" report on vouchers.

KSL: "Pro-voucher ads say a 'yes' vote for Referendum 1 would be good for public schools, shrinking class sizes and allowing funding per pupil to go up. One illustration of how it would work is in an Oreo cookie ad: 'Now this student decides to take $3,000 in a voucher and goes to a private school. The class size goes down, and we can allocate the remaining money on the students who are still there.' That's true."

Frankly, the "vouchers-are-good-for-public-schools" argument has an "Alice in Wonderland" quality.

First of all, education in Utah is funded using a formula based on the number of students enrolled in the school district. At least that's what the "impartial analysis" in the Utah Voter Information Pamphlet says. More students, more money; fewer students, less money. So how can per pupil funding go up when vouchers would decrease the number of students enrolled?

I understand there's a five-year mitigation period built into the law intended to soften the financial hit schools would take. Why is damage mitigation needed if vouchers actually would help public schools, as the pro-voucher crowd claims? What happens after five years?

Second, it's hard to imagine class sizes shrinking because of a private-school outlet. Capacity just does not exist. Only 79 of the 125 private schools in Utah are large enough to qualify to receive vouchers. Only seven of those enroll over 400, and they're the most exclusive, academically rigorous, and expensive in Utah. All are located along the Salt Lake Valley-to-Ogden corridor. Parents lucky enough to live in the Salt Lake Valley and get their kid into Rowland-Hall, Judge, or Waterford should expect to pay anywhere from $6,000, $10,000, and more each year. Ten counties in Utah have no private schools whatsoever. Cache County is representative of the kind of presence private schools have in Utah. It had two private schools with total enrollments of 153 in 2006.

In nine years Utah will have about 140,000 more kids to educate, according to projections by the state Office of Education. That means Utah's private schools would have to massively expand their capacity just to keep up with current enrollment levels. A Catholic school may open in the fast-growing Jordan area of the Salt Lake Valley but grand statewide expansion plans do not exist. And The Challenger School chain has indicated it won't even participate in the voucher program.

More than likely private school enrollment, regardless of vouchers, will decrease as a percentage of the total.

The Oreo cookie ad doesn't mention fixed costs (building construction and maintenance, utility bills, janitors' salary, and administrative support) that would not go away even though a few students do. Although the cost of educating a kid would be about $5,500 (or as high as $7,500) in a public school and about $2,500 or so privately through vouchers, fixed costs would eat up the difference. Savings to taxpayers is fantasy.

In addition, nothing would prevent a local district from cutting its budget (and taxes) after receiving a windfall from the state during the mitigation period. It could be a politically enticing option for a school board pressured by taxpayers watching their property assessments going up and up.

The legislative fiscal analysis says vouchers will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions when fully implemented, and that does not include costs of probable court fights.

Some 11 voucher and/or educational tax credit bills have been presented for consideration by the Republican-controlled Legislature since 1997. Like the Energizer bunny, they just won't die. They only distract from the non-partisan truth that educating hundreds of thousands of kids costs a lot of money.

Instead of subsidizing private schools and creating another state-managed program, Democratic members of the Legislature and a few Republicans with the courage to challenge the leadership of their party have consistently worked toward passage of the following long-term, nuts-and-bolts solutions:

• Appropriations that would fund K-12 class size reduction;
• Salary increases for teachers;
• Expenditures for augmented technology and textbook needs;
• Expanding options for extended-day kindergarten;
• Additional funds for capital and operational needs;
• Ensuring nonpartisan election of school board members;
• Support for teacher certification and licensing costs for highly qualified teachers.


KSL:"During this five-year trial period, the program is an 'experiment.' "

Maybe I missed it, but I can find nothing in H.B. 148 that indicates the program is an experiment. There is a provision that the legislative auditor general "conduct a review and issue a report" after the end of the 2013-14 school year. I guess anything can change, but only court interventions have killed voucher programs in other parts of the country.

KSL: " 'Setting few if any standards for private voucher schools. Like no accreditation, no accountability for our tax dollars and no requirement for teachers to have a credential.' That's false. In fact, school accreditation, accountability and teacher credentials are spelled out in both voucher bills. That includes requirements for annual student testing."

"Accreditation." Although H.B. 148 requires accreditation disclosure and, for marketing reasons as much as anything else, most private schools likely would be accredited or at least tell parents accreditation is under review, the law does not require private schools to be accredited. Here is what it says in Section 53A-1a-805 (i): Voucher schools must "provide, upon request to any person, a statement indicating which, if any, organizations have accredited the private school."

"No accountability for our tax dollars." Private schools are not accountable to elected representatives of Utah taxpayers. The private schools can spend voucher money any way they see fit as long as the "expenditure of scholarship funds have been made for education expenses ... consistent with other tuition expenditures." Section 53A-1a-805 (iii) (A) Similarly vague standards have paved the way for waste and fraud in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin. According to a comparison of public, charter, and private schools published by the Utah Charter School office of the Utah State Office of Education, no regulations exist regarding curriculum (They can teach anything) or enrollment (Private schools ultimately decide who will attend, not parents. Religious schools, for instance, first choose students affiliated with their particular denomination and elite schools choose based on the likelihood of academic excellence. H.B. 148 does not change this basic difference between public and private schools).

"No requirement for teachers to have credentials." H.B. 148 spells out teacher credentials this way in Section 53A-1a-805: Private schools must "(g) employ or contract with teachers who (i) hold baccalaureate or higher degrees; or (ii) have special skills, knowledge, or expertise that qualifies them to provide instruction in the subjects taught." Private schools can hire anybody because "special skills, knowledge, or expertise" are defined by the private schools. It's a pretty big loophole.

Anyway, I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. But let me know if I've missed the boat on any of this. I'll probably pluck it up on the blog to justify my existence.

Bill Keshlear


Rich Piatt's response:


Bill,

I stand by my story.

Rich

Morning News editor says he made a mistake. Will he now take on his younger brother?

In a mea culpa of sorts published on Oct. 14, Joe Cannon, former chairman of Utah Republican Party and current editor of The Deseret Morning News, said he regrets speaking at a recent closed meeting of influential conservatives.

"My attendance was a mistake."

He said readers “are entitled to news that is untainted by fear or favor. Readers are also entitled to believe that journalists are not beholden to any particular interest.”

He's talking the talk. But ethical journalism demands action “free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know,” according to the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics. Will he walk the talk?

Joe would silence skeptics, inside and outside of his newsroom, if he were to unleash his Fourth Estate watchdogs - an award-winning group of reporters and photographers - on younger brother Chris, representative of Utah’s 3rd Congressional District.

How likely is that?

So far into Joe's tenure the paper has been Chris' lap dog. For instance, Utahns DID NOT find out about the following from The Deseret Morning News:

• Rep. Cannon voted against a bill that would apply U.S. criminal law to mercenaries accused of killing innocent Iraqis while working for private security contractors in Iraq.

• Rep. Cannon has not participated in any of the congressional or state hearings into the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster.

• Rep. Cannon told a national audience watching “Fox News Sunday” that former New Mexico prosecutor David Iglesias, one of eight federal prosecutors dismissed as part of a 2006 purge instigated by the Bush administration, was fired because he’s “an idiot.’’

• Even as commercial television was promoting its sleazy fall lineup, Rep. Cannon and other Republicans renewed their ideological attack on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, one of the few sources of non-commercial educational and family oriented programming. If it had passed, the collateral damage would have hit Brigham Young University's KBYU.

• Rep. Cannon voted against reauthorizing a program to put more police officers on the street.

Under Joe's direction, the Deseret Morning News has offered readers full access to Chris' partisan platitudes that have nothing to do with common sense solutions to solving everyday problems or, on a higher level, something close to the quest for truth in a complicated world. It's all about advancing a career. Here’s a sampling:

• “Attorney General Gonzales is a good man and a dedicated public servant who rightly focused the Department of Justice on winning the war on terror. Now is the time to end political witch hunts.” Reaction after U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned.

• “It’s time for the majority to stop swaggering its power in this Congress.” Criticizing Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

• "Retreat, no matter what euphemism it is cloaked in, is not a strategy. The fact is, Iraq is the central front in the war against jihadism." Praising President Bush's war effort in Iraq.

• "Respect cannot be learned, purchased or acquired — it can only be earned. Respect cannot be mined, enriched or tested — it can only be deserved. And legitimacy, freedom and prosperity for your people can only be achieved by building up, not by tearing down." Lecturing Kazakhstan officials during a $12,000 trip to Kazakhstan.

"LDS issue" between Mitt, Republicans is not an "LDS issue" between Harry, Democrats

Many Utah Democrats, and probably many Republicans, are puzzled at the way influential members of the Republican Party treat Mitt Romney.

The so-called “party of family values” seems to prefer Rudy Giuliani, a poster boy for moral decrepitude.

Here’s one snapshot from bad-boy Rudy’s family album as described in Slate:

Rudy's first marriage was annulled on the grounds that the couple didn’t get the dispensation from the Catholic Church they needed to marry as second cousins, once removed. To unbelievers annulments seem to be an effective strategy to marry again and still be in the good graces of the church - but after 14 years of marriage, Rudy’s can only seem squirrelly. That’s a venial sin, though, compared with the crash and burn next time around. Rudy's second wife found out he was divorcing her during a press conference. She then accused him of carrying on a longtime affair with one of his staff members. Rudy’s defense was that she identified the wrong woman. In fact, he was involved with Judith Nathan, his current wife who is not showcased on the stump (Except for weird cell-phone calls interrupting speeches).

Through this messy process, Rudy inflicted lots of pain on his family. To hear him shrug the whole thing off with “I don't think any of us have perfect lives,” as he did to Barbara Walters, is like watching Tony Soprano play down his little violence problem.

National polls indicate that Republicans prefer this kind of guy to Romney, a businessman and public servant who projects an All-American, can-do, straight-laced persona.

What gives?

Romney has an insurmountable political problem within his Republican Party, a problem that would not be given a second thought if he were a Democrat: Mitt is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Many members of one of the most influential wings of the Republican Party – "born again" Christian evangelicals like the ones who gathered recently in Salt Lake City for a meeting of the secretive National Council on Policy – believe that the LDS Church represents heresy and competitors in the race to save souls. A not so insignificant number believe Mormons are cult members destined for eternal damnation.

Lord have mercy.

Compare Romney’s current decline with Harry Reid’s ascent. Reid, a faithful and unabashed LDS member and a longtime U.S. senator from Nevada, is arguably the most powerful Democrat currently holding public office. The overwhelming majority of his constituents are non-Mormon; about 7 percent are LDS Church members, according to the 2007 Church Almanac.

He recently told about 6,000 students at Brigham Young University that his faith and political beliefs were deeply intertwined: “I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it. …”

Sen. Reid invoked the words of King Benjamin, a figure of wisdom in the Book of Mormon: “When you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God. …

“To what then, was King Benjamin referring? I believe in today’s context he would of course have in mind a Bishop, an Elder’s Quorum President, a missionary and of course a home or visiting teacher. But I suggest that King Benjamin would consider the Peace Corps, Teach for America, work in a non-profit to help the poor or the sick as commendable service.”

It’s hard to imagine Republican presidential candidate Romney quoting scripture from the Book of Mormon during any public forum. On YouTube? I don't think so.

Even though Sen. Reid said it is not uncommon for members of the LDS Church to ask how he can be a Mormon and a Democrat, it’s not hard to imagine a Democratic Party platform derived exclusively from The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants:

PLANK 1: We need to work to end poverty in our communities and around the world. Plead the cause of the poor and the needy. (D&C 124:75)

PLANK 2: We seek justice and dignity for workers. I will be a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling. (3 Nephi 24:5)

PLANK 3: We seek equality for all, regardless of race, nationality, or creed. There should be an equality among all. (Mosiah 27:3)

PLANK 4: We defend human rights for all people. Laws should be maintained for the rights and protection of all. (D&C 101:77)

PLANK 5: We stand for participatory democracy. Do your business by the voice of the people. (Mosiah 29:26)

PLANK 6: We stand against racism, gender inequity, and other forms of discrimination. Black and white, bond and free, male and female; all are unlike unto God. (2 Nephi 26:33)

PLANK 7: We work for peace and an end to violence. Sue for peace and an end to violence. (D&C 105:38)

PLANK 8: We seek wise stewardship of the Earth’s resources. All things which come of the Earth are to be used with judgment. (D&C 59:18)

(Thanks to Mormons for Equality and Social Justice)

Maybe this hypothetical LDS-influenced Democratic platform is something close to what Sen. Reid has in mind when he responds to LDS members who tell him his party affiliation puts him in the minority of LDS Church members. He says, “If you look at the Church membership over the years, Democrats have not always been the minority, and I believe we won’t be for long.”

Maybe LDS doctrine-in-action with its focus on selfless service to others is closer to Democratic values than to Republican values, at least those adopted by Republican leaders in the Utah Legislature.

Romney's presidential fate would be sealed by the right-wing of the Republican Party if he closed a speech, especially one at BYU, the way Harry Reid did on Oct. 9:

“I bear testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the foundation for the blessings we now enjoy laid by the young boy and assassinated Prophet Joseph Smith and with certainty, I testify of Gordon B. Hinckley as our modern day prophet.

“It is finally my plea and prayer that we will follow the teachings that we know to be true, and in so doing create a better world.”

This closing, a public testimony and benediction in front of every news camera and reporter of significance in Utah, coming from Romney could never happen because he is a Republican. It could and did happen coming from Reid because he is a Democrat.

Democrats have many issues. Some of the most pressing and historically significant involve Sen. Reid because of his position. But his faith and his expression of it are not on the list.

Sutherland's latest: Rhetorical cherry-picking or just good old-fashion intellectual dishonesty?

The latest smokescreen from The Sutherland Institute’s pro-voucher message factory gives Utahns a textbook look at how to cherry pick pseudo-scientific sources for rhetorical purposes.

“The empirical evidence underscoring the correlation between increased academic achievement and higher parental involvement is overwhelming," said Paul Mero, president of The Sutherland Institute.

The Web site links to a flier with a headline titled, “Vouchers work everywhere they have been tried.” (My emphasis)

Pshaw.

One of the two sources the flier cites to back up that gross overstatement is “School Choice: The Findings,” which was published this year by the Cato Institute. Its author apparently is Herbert J. Walberg.

The Cato Institute does not produce objective policy analyses. Its "studies" are not products of a rigorous academic peer-review process. Answers to its questions are framed within a libertarian worldview. Results are intended to promote libertarian solutions.

Libertarian input yields only libertarian output.

Cato does what Cato does because that's what its uber-conservative sugar daddies demand.

Here's a list of some of them:

• Castle Rock Foundation. Established by the Coors Foundation as a way to fund conservative projects outside of Colorado;

• Koch Family Foundations. Financed via the oil and gas fortunes of Fred G. Koch, a founding member of the John Birch Society;

• The John M. Olin Foundation. In 2001, gave $20,482,961 to fund right-wing think tanks including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Project for the New American Century, which enabled neo-conservatives to openly advocate for total U.S. global military domination and lay intellectual framework for what has turned out to be the debacle in Iraq;

• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. According to Media Transparency, “The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation is to return the U.S. - and the world - to the days before governments began to regulate Big Business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off. … It has seen its greatest successes in the areas of welfare ‘reform’ and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers .... ”;

• Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation. In 2002, gave $22 million to fund radical causes; donated to an organization that pays poor women, especially those addicted to drugs, either to be sterilized or to undergo long-term birth control.

Walberg, author of the study cited by The Sutherland Institute, is a longtime school-choice advocate/academic who has worked at conservative think-tanks legitimized (in too many cases in exchange for generous endowments) by name-brand universities.

According to the Cato Web site, Walberg sits on the board of directors at the Heartland Institute, a Milton Friedman-loving, Al Gore-hating organization in Chicago that wants to privatize America’s K-12 education system ... and pretty much everything else.

(Joseph Bast, president of Heartland, has written that he considers voucher programs to be springboards to the long-range goal of privatization. "Soon, most government schools will be converted into private schools or simply close their doors. Eventually, middle- and upper-income families will no longer expect or need tax-financed assistance to pay for the education of their children, leading to further steps toward complete privatization." As of March 2007, eight Utah lawmakers sat on Heartland's “Board of Legislative Advisors”, including Utah Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble.)

Paul Mero says, “Vouchers work everywhere they have been tried.” Does he mean they work well? If that’s the case, he's not particularly well informed.

Mero's rhetorical vision has not been clouded by research intended to independently evaluate established voucher programs, including the following:

• A U.S. General Accounting Office review of privately funded voucher programs in New York, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C., that found no significant differences in general student achievement;

• A review of a voucher program in Washington, D.C., by researchers hired by the U.S. Department of Education that showed no difference in achievement levels;

• A study by the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education of the voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, that found no significant increase in the achievement levels of students in voucher schools;

• Or an exhaustive seven part series published by The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that, at best, showed mixed results after vouchers were introduced.

Who exactly is supposed to benefit from vouchers? It's sure not me or my family

By Megan Risbon

I am a single mother. According to voucher proponents, the program is supposed to help families like mine. But after looking at the program closer, pro-voucher rhetoric doesn't match the reality lower-income Utahns and their children face.

And I would welcome any of the pro-voucher people to sit down with me and do the numbers.

After Republicans passed HB 148 this year, one of the newspapers had a nice little chart that showed how much voucher money I could get to send my daughter to private school. It would be about $2,500.

According to the pro-voucher people at Sutherland Institute, the average cost of private school tuition in Utah is $4,250. That means my out-of-pocket expense for private school tuition would be $1,750. (Not to mention the other expenses of private schools, but more on that later) I don't know about you, but $1,750 is a lot of money! That would pay for half of my daughter’s health insurance for a year. (Another story for another time). Or even a car of my very own car. Or help me pay off some of my student loans.

None of this matters because after paying each month’s bills, I wouldn’t be able to pay the extra tuition anyway.

Voucher proponents paint these rosy, Never-never Land scenarios. They do not live in the world I live in. They never mention other fees associated with private schools: the registration fee, the activity fees, uniforms, and books. And on and on.

Oh, and let’s not forget about transportation. Most private schools don't have the capability to bus children to and from school. Please Mr. Voucher Man, how can I get my child to a private school across the county when I have to be at work at about the same time in the morning? Should I risk losing my job?

Luckily, there are several private schools in the Salt Lake City downtown area so it would not be much of a burden for my family. But what about those low-income families living miles from a private school or in rural Utah with no car or only one car between working parents? What about their so-called "choice."

Juggling morning schedules is tough enough without factoring in costs of gas and car maintenance ... just to send your child to private school. (And what about multiple children and multiple schools)?

Also, most low-income families are also working families. Both parents work outside the home. Families must come up with after-school child care regardless of whether their kids go to private or public schools. Unless children are supervised by a relative or close friend, child care costs money.

Many private schools have scholarship programs. Maybe my family would qualify. But guess what? Public schools don't charge fees. Sure, you have to buy clothes, regardless of uniform restrictions, and most parents pay for school lunch anyway. As for transportation, your kids could get free transportation.

Voucher proponents say it's all about choice. Has anyone told them choices parents already exercise? My daughter attends a public school outside our neighborhood boundaries. It costs me $5.

In my opinion, this school is one of the best schools in the state. It is an ArtWorks for Kids School. In every part of the curriculum, there is a significant focus on the arts. Everyday, the kids have drama, band, choir, or visual arts. A recent activity included the students in my daughter’s class reading the book, “The Secret Garden” and following it up with a visit to see the play at the Hale Centre Theatre. It really is a great program. The cost to me to educate my daughter using this program? Nothing unless I choose to donate. Because this school is outside our neighborhood boundaries, I must drive her there everyday. Fortunately for me, it’s on my way to the office.

My opinion on this issue has only solidified in the past year with the increased barrage of pro-voucher rhetoric. They say vouchers will help families like mine, but yet, I just don’t see how. In fact, I used think vouchers were OK. My daughter would have individual attention and a broad spectrum of learning opportunities. Class size would be small allowing teachers to focus on her problems, if any.

I don’t need to worry about that at her current school. Large class size is unknown to me. Last year, her class had 21 kids in it; this year, only 19. She gets all the individual attention from her teacher that I can hope for. She is well-fed and well-educated at her public elementary school. I couldn’t ask for anything more. And the best part is I don’t have any out-of-pocket expenses, that unless I choose to contribute.