But enough voters (38 percent) favored vouchers for Referendum 1's outcome also to be seen as a call to improve public education in Utah.

"There are 150,000 Utahns out there saying, 'We need to change our education system,' " voucher backer Doug Holmes said.

Those who led the fight against vouchers say they, too, want changes and don't plan to relax just because they won.

Utahns for Public Schools, an alliance of educators and community groups that came together to oppose vouchers, will stay together indefinitely to work on improving public education, group spokeswoman Lisa Johnson said. The group includes Utah School Board Chairman Kim Burningham, the Salt Lake NAACP, the Utah PTA, Utah Education Association (UEA) and the League of Women Voters, among others.

"It's a misconception that we're about the status quo," UEA President Kim Campbell said.

Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, who opposed vouchers, said the fight lends a new sense of urgency to improving Utah education.

"The debate was great because people did get engaged in it," Allen said. "But now it's time to settle down and get into the hard work."

Some voucher advocates, such as Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, say they doubt public education leaders will suddenly think up new ideas for change other than requesting more money.

"Simply throwing more money at education is not an answer," Bramble said.

But leaders of the anti-voucher movement say they want to see smaller class sizes, better ways to attract and retain quality teachers and more parental involvement, among other things. Utah is in the midst of a teacher shortage, especially in areas such as math, science and special education. The state also has large class sizes and the lowest per-pupil funding of any state in the country.

Voucher proponents saw vouchers as an innovative, inexpensive way to cure some of those ills. Opponents, however, argued that the state should improve education by sinking more resources into public schools, not private ones.

"We've got to meet these problems, but creating another school system is not the answer," said Burningham, state school board chairman.

So what is the answer?

Burningham said he "vehemently" disagrees that the state school board doesn't have any ideas. He said the board's ProExcel program is full of ideas on how to improve teacher quality and quantity, including through teacher mentoring, recruitment, market-based pay and performance-based pay. He cited the board's recommendations for improving math instruction, achievement among English learners and adding more counselors to schools.

He said the state board is also in favor of improving choice through mechanisms already in place such as charter schools and open enrollment.

Voucher foes argued Utahns already have school choice through charter schools and open enrollment. Proponents argued that wasn't enough.

State school board member Mark Cluff, who advocated for vouchers, said he'd like to see open enrollment expanded. Under the state's open enrollment laws, students can transfer to any public school that has the space. But critics have argued that schools often say they don't have enough space for a variety of reasons, limiting parents' options.

"I would like to see our Legislature allow open enrollment to be more open than it is," Cluff said. "It's still too easy for a school district to close schools [to transferring students] if they want to."

Slightly amended open enrollment rules went into effect in October, said Carol Lear, Utah State Office of Education director for school law and legislation. The new rules expanded open enrollment slightly, but Lear said education leaders had to walk a fine line between giving parents choice and giving schools quality control.

For example, if a school is trying to reduce its class sizes, allowing unlimited numbers of students to transfer to that school could hurt that school's flexibility to improve, Lear said.

The UEA's Campbell said Utah already has one of the most extensive public choice programs in the nation. In the Jordan School District, the state's largest district, 10,865 students - 13 percent of the total - take advantage of open enrollment within the district, Jordan spokesman Mike Kelley said.

Still, some say open enrollment, like vouchers, is not a silver bullet.

"I'm certainly not opposed to it, but if we think by allowing kids to transfer more easily we've solved the problems, we are truly fooling ourselves," Allen said. "It goes beyond choice."

The bottom line, say voucher foes, is they, too, want to improve education, but within the public schools. They say they hope to focus on reforms now that vouchers have been defeated.

"We certainly do have weaknesses. It's not a perfect system," Burningham said. "But it's a good system."

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* GLEN WARCHOL and ROBERT GEHRKE contributed to this story.