School voucher foes, friends alike hope for out-of-state support

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As students around the state returned to classes this week, activists intensified campaigns for and against educational vouchers in the run-up to a November referendum election.

Utahns for Public Schools on Wednesday launched a rolling rally aboard a school bus that drove from Salt Lake City to Ogden, spreading their message of the dangers of state subsidy of private schools. The bus stopped in front of North Ogden Junior High School, displaying a white, blue and green banner proclaiming, "Flawed law. Wrong for Utah families."

Meanwhile, voucher supporters' group Parents for Choice is gearing up a community education program that will include paid field workers organized by out-of-state political professionals.

These are the first signs of what is shaping up to be an avalanche of out-of-state support and cash in the controversial election.

"I expect in the next two months, the amount of money we will pour into the campaign will be significant and large," said Kim Burningham, chairman of the state Board of Education and a leader of the voucher opposition. "But there's no way we'll compete with the amount we're expecting will go to the other side. There are a lot of wealthy people nationwide who I'm sure are very much committed to a private school system."

The Utah Education Association's head Kim Campbell said the National Education Association has pledged financial support because vouchers are a national issue. "In the state with the lowest per pupil funding," Campbell said, "we have passed the most expensive voucher program in the nation."

The national interest in the Utah issue was evident in a Wall Street Journal editorial Wednesday that lauded Utah's voucher program as "far-sighted" and reported that Campbell "schlepped all the way to Philadelphia" last month to ask for financial support from the board of the NEA to block the voucher legislation.

Campbell told The Salt Lake Tribune the NEA has promised support, but has yet to set a spending figure for the Utah battle. "We didn't pick this fight - we didn't pass this law. But we're in it," Campbell said. "As professional educators, we're going to fight to protect the interests of the state's schoolchildren."

Meanwhile, Parents for Choice Director Elisa Clements confirmed her organization will benefit from "field workers" paid $15 per hour to educate Utahns about the need for vouchers. Clements would not discuss the number of field workers being hired, where the funding will come from or in which counties they would be concentrated. "That's confidential strategy information," she said.

Burningham said voucher advocates are being supported "heavily from outside the state," but acknowledged, "Hey, we'll accept money from outside the state. We'll seek money anywhere we can get it."

Both sides are also being aided by political professionals. Damien Filer from the Washington, D.C.-based Communities for Quality Education was helping run Wednesday's anti-voucher rally. His position is being funded by a "variety of sources" he said, both in and out of state.

Parents for Choice is getting outside help in organizing its grass-roots campaign from Steve Wark, a Republican political consultant in Las Vegas, Clements confirmed. Voucher supporters say the voucher program will help middle- and low-income families to afford the educational option of private school. It will not take money from public schools, they say, and will improve them by offering competition.

Their opponents complain the program's $500 to $3,000 subsidies would be too little to make a difference to most middle- and low-income families and will just help the wealthy, while further undermining Utah's public schools.