School vouchers have the potential to change many things in Utah.
Some would say that the things changed would mean an improvement of education for many who use vouchers to attend private schools, while making it possible for public schools to keep a portion of the money that would be used for a student with a voucher.
Don't be fooled by such a simplistic view of the potential of school vouchers -- the education system in Utah is not that easily improved.
The Parent Choice in Education Act, also known as H.B. 148, has the potential to further disrupt our state's already deteriorating public education system while widening the gap between high- and low-income families.
Vouchers are awarded to students based on their parents' income. The amounts range from $500 to $3,000 and are derived from a large portion of the money that would be given to the public school where the student would originally be enrolled. The public school is allowed to keep the money not awarded to the student.
Some would find it logical to believe that, given the guidelines for vouchers, public schools would have more money and students would have a chance at a perceived better education at a private school.
However, there are a few problems with these ideas.
To begin, vouchers will not increase the money public schools have. Vouchers will take away a portion, whether it be small or large, of an already insufficient amount allotted to public schools per student enrolled. As one of the worst states in the nation at funding public schools, our public education system needs to do better. There is no way around that fact. It is disturbing that, in a state with a budgetary surplus, legislators would rather implement a system that takes money from public schools than deal with our flailing system by funding it adequately.
Next, there is the issue that the maximum amount allotted in a voucher doesn't come close to the tuition amount for most private schools. The system is by no means going to help members of low-income families because having to pay the thousands of dollars a voucher wouldn't cover is, for many families, impossible. Students in high-income families will likely benefit from the vouchers -- most are already in private schools and can consider a voucher as a $500-off coupon.
This discrepancy in who the vouchers will and will not work for seems as though it will leave schools populated with low-income families bursting at the seams, and schools with high-income families possibly in a better state then they were before. It has the potential to divide our classes further than they already are.
Last, admittance to a private school is by no means an assurance of a higher quality of education. Even the bill itself states that parents will have to accept that "a private school may not provide the same level of services that are provided in a public school."
It is a shame that the education of those who are supposed to lead our country in the future is of such little value that Utah legislators are willing to evade actually fixing the problem with increased funding and put in its place a voucher system that will prove to be more destructive than the system currently in place.
Utahns need to open their eyes to what might happen to our public school system. It isn't as pretty as some would have you think.
