This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If you're sceptical about the sincerity of politicians making promises, as we are, you will not be surprised that the issue of privatizing education has once again come up in Utah. It was inevitable.
A group of conservative Republican legislators is committed to the idea of siphoning public money into private schools. It means little to them that voters overwhelmingly rejected their last attempt to further diminish the state's paltry support for public schools.
The brazen renewal of their attack on public education is not surprising. But its perpetrators' shameless arrogance in the face of statewide support for public schools is downright breathtaking.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, and Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden, co-chairmen of the Legislature's Education Interim Committee, asked legislative leaders this week for permission to bring back the issue. And it was, of course, granted, ignoring broad assurances four years ago that the Legislature would abide by the wishes of the citizenry after a referendum in 2007 roundly spurned a voucher system.
Also on the hit list is all collective bargaining with public employees, including teachers. That, too, is egregious.
Perhaps the vindictiveness of these legislators has been fed by the action of the Ogden School District to forgo contract negotiations with teachers in order to set up a system to reward teachers for excellence. While we support a fair merit-pay system for all Utah districts and are frustrated by teacher unions' refusal to accept such a system, we also believe teachers deserve to be heard on education planning, not just compensation.
Utah government workers do not have strong unions. They don't threaten to derail public services in order to demand higher pay or better working conditions. Collective bargaining here, mostly among public school teachers and school districts, is more a way for both sides to voice opinions about policies, curriculum and pay.
Eliminating collective bargaining would only serve the purpose of Stephenson and others to marginalize public schools while resurrecting their plan to send tax money to private schools. This time they're calling it tuition tax credits, but that's merely another name for vouchers.
The third prong of Stephenson's campaign is to prohibit employers from collecting union dues from public employees' paychecks. It is yet another jab at our underpaid teachers, the majority of whom are hard-working and — unlike Stephenson, et al. — committed to keeping Utah's dismally underfunded public schools afloat.