Pro-Voucher Forces Get Pathetic
Voucher proponents have already begun digging into their bag of dirty tricks and its only August. Pathetic? Yes. Surprising? No.
It will be interesting to see how low the pro-voucher movement will go in pushing this lost cause on Utah’s voters. I’m betting they’ll go much lower than this latest push poll as the election gets closer.
Of course I have to admit that our side hasn’t been guiltless when it comes to stupid ad hominem attacks. It is disheartening that both sides of the political spectrum have so little faith in the abilities of Utah’s voters to decide an issue on its merits.
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Interesting that the push poll tells people that the anti-voucher folks want to raise taxes. Actually, that’s the opposite of the truth. Vouchers = future tax increases.
Comment by Anonymous — August 17, 2007 @ 10:20 am
Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire J.
Comment by ZoRO — August 17, 2007 @ 12:19 pm
I wish PCE would get out of the fight. I’m embarrassed to have them on the same side of the issue.
Comment by Jesse Harris — August 17, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
Here is one voucher proponent that is disavowing all knowledge of such ‘dirty tricks’.
It’s not my bag!
Try to not lump us all in with PCE.
Comment by Tyler Farrer — August 17, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
The anti-voucher folks are the original dirty tricksters, continuing to assert that witches, racists or worse will open schools if vouchers are started. Somehow, though, they’ve never been able to point to a single example in ANY of the existing voucher programs!
Comment by Anonymous — August 17, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Tyler, who has said this? Please say no to straw men.
In the 1950s, vouchers were invented to get around Brown v. Board of Education…but that is a far cry from saying that racists will start private schools.
Comment by DaveB — August 17, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
I agree with Jesse. PCE does not represent my views when it comes to how to support an issue. But regardless of their juvenile tactics, education vouchers do make sense.
Comment by Frank Staheli — August 19, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
The fundamental reason people want to keep all public education funds in public schools is because they don’t trust parents to use that maoney wisely. The opponents of vouchers think Utah parents will pick racially segregated schools, or pick fly-by-night schools that will not provide a quality education to their own children. They believe that large government institutions like the legislature, the State School Board, and local school boards and administrations can make better judgments than ordinary citizens can.
I therefore find it the height of irony that people who don’t trust ordinary Utahns to use good judgment and morality in choosing schools for their children, are now asking them to vote to vote to repeal two laws passed by the legislature.
If Utahns are competent to choose the law on this issue, why aren’t they competent to “vote with their feet” on the quality of public versus private education? Let’s have a referendum every year in which Utah voters get to decide whether the public schools get the tax money collected for the education of their own children, or whether a part of it should go to a private school. If public school boards and teacher unions are confident that Utahns will support them, why should they be afraid of letting Utahns control a portion of state education funding on an annual basis? Don’t they think that they will get the same vote of confidence year after year? Or are they afraid that, given the choice, with real money in hand, Utahns will decide in large numbers to give a try to a private school?
Comment by Raymond Takashi Swenson — August 20, 2007 @ 11:51 am
Mr. Swenson,
Don’t accuse me of not trusting parents. I don’t believe public funds should be spent on schools that are purposefully segregated, that are low quality, or that teach principles of creationism as science to their students but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust someone willing to spend their own money to send their kid to that kind of school. I’m against vouchers because they involve government taking my money to pay for someone else’s private school education. Our government is burdened with providing universal public education and it is generally well suited to that task. Taxpayers shouldn’t be burdened with subsidizing private school students. If you don’t like that you’re free to disagree but don’t take it upon yourself to tell me what my motives are.
If you’d really like to know my motives for opposing vouchers you could actually read the many posts I’ve put up on the topic here or the tons of comments I’ve made throughout Utah’s blogosphere. I don’t think vouchers will pay for themselves and I think they expand government beyond the bounds it should be expanded.
You mentioned irony in your comment. I think it is especially ironic that you’ve commented about how distrustful of parents the anti-voucher movement supposedly is on this particular post. Since you don’t seem to have read the post you’re commenting on I’ll fill you in. I wrote this post as a criticism of the pro-voucher people who are actively using push polls mentioning gay marriage to trick Utahns into supporting voucher legislation. I’m curious Mr. Swenson since you’re clearly so eager to assign phony motives to those who disagree with you; do you think the PCE push polls are right? You seem to have accepted their modus operandi in your comment on this post.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — August 20, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
[…] parents and students. I wonder if Parents for Choice in Education will add this idea to their telephone push poll script? Not likely I’ll […]
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