To begin with, Utah's voucher laws are unconstitutional on their face. Here is why:
The U.S. Constitution makes it clear that the federal government holds ultimate sovereign power over the separate states (Article IV). Also, the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ." Thus when state laws conflict with the language of the U.S. Constitution, the latter takes precedence.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently forbidden the legislative branch of the federal government and the separate states from taking the public's tax money and funneling it to support private, religious, educational institutions. When the two voucher bills became Utah law, they stood in direct conflict with the First Amendment.
Second, there is strength in numbers, and if we are truly all one nation together, only collectively pooling risks, resources and rewards in order to educate all the nation's schoolchildren can provide us all with greater chances of living better lives. Otherwise, only the rich would be getting quality education for their children.
It is this principle upon which public education is predicated. Vouchers deliberately undermine such efforts. Here's how:
Part of the Progressive Movement in the 19th century was led by Horace Mann, responsible for the first public schools in the country. Mann recognized that states can use their economies of scale (buying power through large pools of tax revenues) to build many schools more efficiently.
The point of pooling the public's money is also to bring together the talents of young people from all the diverse groups that are supposed to indivisibly make this nation great. Rich, middle class and poor, black, white, brown, red, yellow, male, female; all should be thrown together for the promises of this nation to materialize.
Private schools, on the other hand, are built by private investors one school at a time, at higher costs. Of course, they get to specify tuition rates, which are usually quite steep to cover these costs. The law allows them to say who can and cannot attend their schools. In other words, private schools are able to be exclusive in numerous ways, and consequently they serve no clearly identifiable educational function for all of Utah's children.
Third, if more students attend private schools, each student will probably have to pay less (bringing down those high costs marginally). However, even the most fully-funded vouchers will come up short of the required tuition at virtually every private school in the state.
But if more students use vouchers over time, it will simply cost more for all the taxpayers of the state to try and educate all kindergarten-through-12th-grade students in two systems. The state budget is finite. How much are we citizens of Utah willing to pay for educating all of Utah's students?
Finally, channeling public tax dollars to subsidize private, mostly religious, schools is only likely to build walls between people. Might it make more sense to promote a curriculum of diversity and tolerance in a well-funded public education system that speaks and acts to the needs of all Utah's children, especially in a post-9/11 environment?
In order to have any chance of ever providing quality education for all, the Legislature, governor and the choice-in-education movement must lose the voucher referendum in November.
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* JOSH GOLD is an assistant professor of political science at Salt Lake Community College.
