A great presentation of the other side of this discussion about tax subsidies for private school attendees was written by Emily Bingham Hollingshead this past March in the St. George newspaper The Spectrum. Anyone who is actually looking for both sides of the discussion would be well served by checking it out.

http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070327/OPINION/703270330

This explanation provoked a few thoughts:

1) Public school school cost per pupil higher than private school cost. (Presumabley Cost/pupil is is TotalCosts/NumberOfPupils)

2) The article says that when a student leaves the public school to the cheaper private school, because of the cost difference, some money remains in the public school, resulting in an *increase* in spending/pupil. This would be the spending/pupil that is already higher than the
private school alternative, right? So, as vouchers enable more parents to excercise choice and send their children to private schools, resulting in more demand resulting in more competition resulting in even lower private school prices/pupil, the price/student in public school goes UP.
wow. This will expose to an even greater degree the results of lack of competition. The gulf between public school and private school costs will grow even wider.

3) So, if all but 1 of public school students were to get vouchers and exit public schools for private schools.

According to the math here, this would mean an astronomical amount of spending/pupil on the one last remaining pupil. But hey, he'd get an awesome

education...

4) Of course, if 100% of students took the voucher and left the public school system, this would be quite an embarrassment -- all that money (the difference between current cost/student and the voucher cost * all students) would now be funding what... A well-funded bureau-archy, er bureaucracy, without an objective. An educational bridge to nowhere, so to speak.

5) Methinks I see now why certain forces would fight against vouchers -- the more they are used, the more they expose the leaky-bucket bureaucratic costs to the existing monopoly system. But, actually, when I analyze it further, I think that the above fantastic scenario would actually work alright. Just as, thanks to the American Revolution, England is no longer under monarchial rule, but rather parliamentiary rule and the "Royalty" is simple expensive entertainment, I think that freedom from the shackles of the inevitable results of monopoly is worth it if we were to simply take this dollar difference, and **continue funding the bureaucracy.** We should use that money and keep paying the teachers unions and bureaucrats. That would keep the supporters of collectivist, one-size-fits-all solutions on the take, while all the advantages of the natural consequences of competition (increasing quality, decreasing costs) accrue to our students. (Naturally, we would give them some nominal task to accomplish).

Sure, that amount of funding won't be able to put all of the bureaucrats and teachers on the dole; many teachers would have to be fired.

But that's OK! Many wouldn't want to remain. There are many good teachers in the public school system. They would go out and compete for jobs with the private schools. Teachers who really put their hearts into their students would now climb quickly to the top, rather than 'endure' the years to get tenure and being stifled in their great ideas by beaurocracy, and being blackballed if they don't care to participate in non-educational aspects like coaching some extra-curricular team with no additional pay as one of the unwritten rules of how to stay in favor and keep your job. Whereas those who are more adept at political manuevering than teaching can remain with the group that stays and gets paid off to stay out of the private school system. I think it's a brilliant plan! Bring it on!

Reminds me of a story in Systemantics by John Gall. "Shortly after a rescue team had drilled a deep borehole to provide safe drinking water for a village in Ethiopia, the team was dismayed to learn that the borehole was being repeatedly vandalized by being filled with rocks. Previously, certain men of the village had made their livelihood by carrying water from a distant waterhole in skin containers on the back of donkeys. Now they were out of a job. When those men were appointed as guardians of the new borehole, at a good salary, the vandalism ceased." p. 181.

Might vouchers be compared to the newly drilled borehole? (I actually prefer tax tuition credits to vouchers as a 'rescue borehole'). And, the bureacracy and teachers union leadership compared to "certain men of the village" concerned for their jobs, and thus willing to fill the borehole with rocks? And, might we not be able to simply employ these "certain men of the village" to be the guardians of the new borehole? (Of course, private schools exist because they want the freedom to innovate and be different, so might not like being closely watched. But couldn't the analogy stand? Perhaps a Governors Commission to Facilitate Rapid Implementation of Alternative Strategies for Solving the Education Crisis. They could be paid good salaries to 'keep it in the study phase'.

6) I'm having a hard time understanding the part about vouchers incentivizing public schools would improve "become more responsive to parents as they seek to win that student and the funding that follows him/her."

Imagine this: Given a market for a fixed number of gizmos, and given I have a monopoly on the manufacturer of gizmos (say I hold the patent to it's manufacture), and given that I get to service the entire market if I refuse to license my Intellectual Property, and under these circumstances I bring in X dollars per gizmo. Along you come and tell me that if I license my IP to others, that for every gizmo that the competition sells (and thus every gizmo I manage to not sell) I get paid some portion of X -- I get a royalty on every gizmo the competition sells -- and every X I manage to not sell means the competition sells one and I get a nice profit off the top, increasing my profit for the remaining gizmos I do sell. But then I realize that I can realize the greatest profit by simply ceasing manufacture of gizmos and licensing to others my monopoly IP to enable and allow them to manufacture gizmos. Isn't it my wisest course to simply send any customers that come my way to the other competition and reap the rewards of my monopoly, with very little overhead and simply take in the pure profit?

I suppose the reply is that the goal of the public school system isn't to make a profit, so such considerations are irrelevant. I can accept that, but doesn't that shoot down the theory that the public schools will become more responsive to parents in chasing after the funding? (As an aside, by this being brought forward as an argument, it clearly indicates that the author believes there is room for improvement here -- in other words, believes the public schools are not currently responsive enough to the parents. Not having children in public school, I don't have an opinion here, but I could wager a guess -- if the education monopoly bureaucracy behaves as most bureaucracies do, it sounds like a reasonable argument).

Well, enough of this, I guess. Interesting article. Thanks.

Jim,

Will the children of illegal immigrants be able to use the vouchers? There are about 10,000 of them in Utah schools and they are disproportionately expensive to teach. They are hard to keep track of and often need extensive remediation. $$$$$$.

Public schools are required to take them in and teach them. Importantly, if they cannot use vouchers, their percentage in the public system will, by definition, increase. That would effectively make the public schools have less money per student.

Tim,

Sounds like it would save the state money to actually compel all student of illegal immigrants to take the voucher, leaving zero of them in the public schools. The voucher could be considered the public's "duty" to educate them (we won't go there, because I don't believe it's the public's duty to educate anyone legal or not, it is the parent's duty, and the public school system should be a backup, welfare system for those that can't afford to do their duty, and everyone else should be self-reliant educationally). Then, the difference between what the state pays per illegal student now, and the voucher cost would remain in the public school system.

Though I'm sure of the unpopularity of my position on this issue (the status quo being evidence of that), I want to point out the fact that we have (based on rather dubious logic) decided that 1)Education is a "public good", and 2)The best way to educate the most people is through a state-run monopoly.

While it is a valid point to say that everyone is made better off when their neighbors are better educated, it does not logically follow that therefore everyone must be taxed to fund a state-run educational system in order to accomplish that as a goal. Everyone is also better off by more people having access to a wide variety of inexpensive food. But it is obvious that the plethora of private grocery stores do a better job at providing this that would the state.

The government itself prosecutes businesses which engage in monopolistic practices under the logic that lack of competition hurts the consumer. Yet this logic goes out the window when it comes to the truest monopolies, i.e. government monopolies, when it comes to things such as the education of children. In the market, I, the customer, vote with my dollars as to which company best provides the product/service I seek. While it may be true that I have other alternatives to public school (e.g. the private school my children attend currently), what I do NOT have is the choice of truly voting with my dollars. In a market transaction, when I buy a product from a given company, I not only vote FOR that company, I essentially vote AGAINST its competitors. Even with the voucher system, there is a net reward for the public schools!

I think many Utahans (and Americans in general) accept the "goodness" of publicly funded and administered education simply because they themselves are products of that system, and have never looked beyond it. They cannot even conceive of the alternative. Hence we are bombarded with doomsday scenarios of poor little working class children being "left behind" because Mommy and Daddy can't afford to send them to school.

Face it, even in Utah (with its supposedly wonderful public schools), private schools do it better, and with less money. The one benefit I do see to the voucher system is that it could very well lead to a mass exodus from public schools, prompting a total rethink of the whole situation, perhaps ending the abolishment of public education altogether, with its attendant monster budgets. With the resultant tax cuts that should then be implemented, economic growth in this state would skyrocket.

But I won't hold my breath that the logical case I have laid out will penetrate the minds of many of the publicly educated among us.

Your explanation of funding advantages/competition seem contradictory. If it was an financial advantage to the public schools to lose some of their students to the private schools via the voucher program why would that increase competition between the private and public schools? What incentive do the public schools have to try and win that student back? Certainly not financial....If not financial, then what?

Doing the math:

State funding appropriations for public education is ~$3.9B. In FY08 the appropriation for vouchers is $9.3M. To offset the "impact" of vouchers there was an additional $3.9 added to the existing $3.9B (what was the point?). If EVERY dollar appropriated for vouchers is issued/spent, that represents a maximum of 0.2% of 1% of the states Education budget.

As of mid-September, the NEA has funded anti-vouchers adds for the amount of $1.5M with additional amounts also commoning from Teacher's unions in Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming & Arizona.

The arguements put forward against vouchers focuses on the amount of money spent towards vouchers as "lost revenue" that COULD have been added to the Education funding. As the total voucher appropriation is ~0.2% of 1 percent of the education budget and the unions have already spent over $1.5M opposing the $9.3M appropriation, the voucher opposition has little or nothing to do with the cited concern about taxpayer money.

Here is great response to the oreo ad: The REAL oreo voucher ad

Sorry, I thought it would include my link. Here is the address to the good oreo ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Kt-i4pmV0
or you can click on my name.

There are two things that make me crazy about this issue. The opponents do use truthful statements in saying it will take money from schools, iffy teacher certification etc. All are fairly emotionally charged statements. But it seems that all proponents can do is provide a who's who of backers.
GIVE ME NUMBERS! Until I really dug into the issue I couldn't understand how giving away money to take kids out of the system would benefit the remaining kids.
Second, by backing the voucher initiative the governor and legislature seem to be conceding that they are incapable of running the education system. Are they not the bosses? Why are they incapable of holding schools and teachers to a higher standard?
This seems to be a shot over the bow to warn the public school establishment that the legislature has the power to loot the treasury and give away their money rather than hold them accountable for what their current charge is.
I say that a better overall option is to have some sweeping reform in the administrative end of the public education business. Pay teachers more than administrators and put incentives in place for schools and districts to make differences.

Stop the exodus of good teachers moving to administration so they can make more money.
College coaches seem to be the only "educators" that are on a performance plan. But a good history teacher has to become an administrator to make decent money. This tells me that managing adults and problem kids is more important that teaching everyone else. (Come to think of it, it is a perfect Liberal system. The few are more important that the many.)

The fact will remain that regardless of what happens with vouchers, the vast majority of Utah's kids will continue to be educated in the public system.
Vouchers will provide a small stop gap but the system won't be fixed with vouchers.
I could go on but I think I've made my point.

An old farmer friend of mine use to tell me, if you feed your cows and chickens you can milk your cow and gather eggs every day, but you can only have steak or fried chicken once. Let's make our legislature put in place systems and incentives so we can keep milking the public education cow and gathering the public education eggs.