Third Nephi 6:12,14 reads, “And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. ... And thus there became a great inequality throughout all the land.”

This verse from the Book of Mormon describes the beginning of the final Nephite pride cycle before the coming of Christ. To be clear, the text states unequivocally that this “inequality” in “chances for learning” leads to pride, which is a very bad thing. It very shortly resulted in persecution, then great destruction among the Nephite people.

It’s therefore amazing to me that our Utah Legislature, made up almost entirely of people who profess to believe in the Book of Mormon, seems hellbent on replicating this negative Nephite situation among the people of Utah.

First, they have chronically underfunded Utah schools (Utah is consistently dead last in per-pupil spending among the 50 states and D.C.). This has led to a perpetual teacher shortage and other seemingly intractable problems (which are perfectly solvable with adequate funding) that leave parents casting about for alternatives.

Now the Legislature is offering taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents who put their kids in private schools. But according to the back-of-the-envelope math done by my friend Darlene McDonald, the $8,000 voucher won’t cover the $10,000 average cost of private school tuition, leaving those families on the hook for the difference. Who’s got $2,000 per child, per term, lying around? It’s not the poor, or even most of the middle class.

Utah’s voucher program will stratify our society “by ranks, according to [our] riches and [our] chances for learning.” The glaring income inequality in our society, already approaching Gilded Age levels, will be made worse by this policy.

And it’s really hard to argue that this isn’t by design. Who benefits from an unequal education level in society? Right now, the demagogues in the Republican Party, who are losing college-educated voters in record numbers but are finding our less-educated fellow citizens easier to manipulate with nationalistic messages and culture-war issues.

America’s Founding Fathers understood this aspect of human nature, and they took steps to inoculate their new Republic against it. John Adams, our second president, wrote that protecting the American public from insidious manipulation “must begin with the Body of the People, which can be done only, to affect, in their Educations.” He then illustrated the way it should be done: “The Whole People must take upon themselves the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it. There should not be a district of one Mile Square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselves.”

Public education is one of the great inventions of the American republic — and a necessary one. Our Founding Fathers knew that only a people educated well and educated equally would be able to maintain the system of government they instituted.

The Utah Legislature has prevented us from educating our children well so that they can begin to educate some children unequally. Unequal education was the norm in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. It led to aristocracy. It will do so here as well if we let it. The Book of Mormon teaches us that much.

The members of the Utah Legislature who supported school vouchers should pay more attention to the scripture they claim to believe.

Daniel Craig Friend, Provo, is the father of two little girls who will soon have to live with the consequences of Utah’s education system for the rest of their lives.