To those who have lost faith in our public schools: The future of our representative democratic government requires strengthening our struggling public school system, not dismantling it through Utah Fits All. Utah Fits All, Utah’s voucher program, uses income taxes to provide annual “scholarships” for private schooling.
How does Utah Fits All contribute to the weakening of democracy? Using taxpayers’ money to support private schools lacks accountability. Private schools are not governed by elected state and local school board members who come together on a regular basis to hash out our common good. Contentious as that is in our hyperpolarized society, the continual search for the common good is the core of the public school system and of democratic governance.
Many Utah taxpayers are asking why our Legislature is turning its back on policies it has unwaveringly upheld, including robust accountability for tax dollars, detailed and public reporting of student achievement, high standards for teachers, the forbidding of tax dollars paid to private religious schools and the oversight role of the Utah State Board of Education.
Utah’s legislative about-face echoes a movement across the country as it paves the way for school choice programs (using vouchers, scholarships, education savings accounts and tax credits) to advance a decades-long effort to privatize public education. Advocates for school choice and corporate privatization have joined forces. Both agendas depend on relaxed regulations that open public education budgets to corporate raiding and taxpayer-funded teaching of sectarian beliefs.
Sectarian schools are affiliated with religious or other belief systems, and these schools typically teach their affiliated belief systems. A sectarian education system evolves when parents choose to spend tax dollars in schools that teach their personal beliefs as absolutes, beyond question. Utah Fits All scholarship students risk the lack of critical thought and appreciation for the wide range of perspectives beyond their sectarian schools. Channeling our tax dollars to sectarian alternatives is a path to a more divisive future.
How far do vouchers lead us away from the nonsectarian vision upon which our public school system was founded? The Common School Movement can be traced to the work of Horace Mann (1796-1859), Massachusetts secretary of education (1837-1848). Mann was concerned that new freedoms, granted after the Revolutionary War, could destroy the American experiment in democracy unless we could prepare students for self-governance through a nonsectarian, state-funded, universal education system. Following Mann’s lead, our country’s education stakeholders have met regularly to find our common good and reach consensus on injustices that prevent Mann’s unifying goals from becoming fully realized. Unfortunately, Utah Fits All and similar programs across the country have had a chilling effect on Mann’s vision. With a sectarian system, we lose sight of the public school system’s unifying force held since its inception.
What could strengthen the public system? High-stakes, standardized tests are not required as a primary means for taxpayer accountability in schools receiving Utah Fits All “scholarships.” The Legislature could strengthen the public system by ending corporate-friendly testing (e.g., high-stakes, standardized tests) in the public schools. Utah could return to meaningful statewide standards, curriculum and assessments designed by Utah’s professional educators and overseen by the Utah State Board of Education.
States with voucher systems already in place have shown that vouchers further weaken our public system by diverting public funds from our already underfunded public school system. Right now, today, our public school system is in desperate need of those funds to hire enough school psychologists to meet national standards, to hire a school nurse for every school, to carry out recommended safety upgrades, etc. To reverse this trend, the Legislature needs to return oversight of tax dollars back to the Utah State Board of Education.
If we agree that the search for our common good is central to the success of representative democracies, and if the Legislature is sincere about wanting a system of education that can innovate so all parents have access to great schools, then write to your legislators in support of strengthening the public school system by ending Utah Fits All.