In its sixth annual revision, this year's voucher bill is designed as a compromise. It creates a pot of money to offset losses school districts may incur when students obtain tax-funded "scholarships" for private school tuition. To address concerns that vouchers would encourage higher-income students to leave public school while disadvantaged children remain behind, it would favor low-income students with vouchers ranging from $500 to $3,500, based on family income.

Still, we oppose HB181 and urge Utah's pro-education legislators to stand firm against what amounts to tax subsidies for private schools. Our reasons are based both on the provisions of this particular bill and on a philosophical opposition to legislation that uses tax money for private-school education. This bill would encourage Utah students to leave the public school system in numbers that would not substantially reduce class sizes but would siphon tax money away from public schools.

The funding mechanism that HB181 sets up for the voucher system is reminiscent of a carnival shell game. Some $13 million would come out of the state's general fund the first year to pay for the vouchers. The district would retain the difference between each voucher and the amount of average per-pupil spending it would have received from the state for that student.

The rest of that money would go into a reserve account that could be used to offset losses incurred by districts whose students leave for private school. Any unused money from that fund would go into the state's education fund.

Whew!

The bill is not only fiscally complicated, possibly hiding its real cost, but it would be expensive for school districts to administer.

Its complexity aside, it is simply another plan to shift tax dollars to private schools instead of focusing the state's limited resources on improving the public system. We don't give people a voucher to hire a private security agency if they're critical of the local police, or to buy bottled water if they don't like the taste of what they get through public pipes.

Parents now have the option to choose private schools, but the state should not subsidize that choice.