Best Pro-Voucher Ad Ever
It’s easy for normal folks to get lost in an issue with so much rhetoric.
That’s why I was thrilled to get this ad in the mail:
This ad makes it easy for people like my mother-in-law to feel safe in a Parents’ Choice vote, despite claims from voucher opponents that
The real “bureaucrats and liberals” are the subsidy advocates and out-of-state voucher pushers looking for Utah to save their faltering national movement.
and
The issue isn’t about choice, is a liberal subsidized entitlement program that competes for scarce resources.
(Both those quotes come right out of the “against” portions of the 2007 Utah Voter Information Pamphlet, with my emphasis added.)
So, wait a minute… Sean Hannity, Mitt Romney, & Focus on the Family are liberal? What does that make Hillary, Atheists United, and the Rainbow Coalition? Can you ever be so far left that you actually wrap around? Voucher smearers, I think you may have a beam in your eye.
I only wish the pro-vouchers list had included the Utah Taxpayers Association and the late, Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman, from whose stellar essays the voucher bill is based. I think a lot of questions on the fiscal and tax impacts of Referendum 1 could have easily been answered by their inclusion.
BTW, I think that perhaps the dumbest statement I heard at Provo High School’s voucher debate was when an anti-voucher lady (whose name I don’t know) declared that she thought it was offensive that the Choice in Education side was citing some economist when these were Utah’s kids we were talking about it.
Some Economist –> Milton Friedman, arguably one of the greatest thinkers of our time.
Utah’s Kids –> Your Kids
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Choice in Education | 
November 3, 2007 3:27 pm
By Kevin, November 3, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
So what if you don’t trust either side of the list?
By Alex, November 3, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
What about those of us who are from areas that have never had and likely will never have private schools? How much of our tax money is going to be spent to administer a program that has absolutely no impact on our families and towns?
By Alex, November 3, 2007 @ 7:24 pm
Sorry, got a little trigger happy. What I was going to continue to say is that I’m all for privatization of anything we can privatize, but they need to come up with a way that will work effectively for the rest of the state, not just the geographic minority of the Wasatch Front.
By Jordy, November 3, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
I think a more privatized market will bring private schools to rural towns. It’ll be gradual, but I bet it will happen sooner than you think.
By Jordy, November 3, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
Kevin wrote:
> So what if you don’t trust either side of the list?
Then you’re a good American citizen. Although I (like most Utahns) tend to agree with one side much more than the other, I believe America would be a better place if everyone was a little more skeptical of their elected leaders (and the organizations that get them elected). Politicians would have to answer to the people a little more, and that would be good for everybody.
This bill also makes government (and teachers) a little more answerable to the public. That’s a good thing.
By Mark, November 4, 2007 @ 8:05 am
It’s nice how PFC and other pro-voucher people say “if you don’t support vouchers you obviously don’t believe in God (Atheist Alliance), are pro-gay marriage (Rainbow Coalition), are standing in line for abortions (NOW, PP) and are a left wing nut (Nader, Moore)” because I’m none of those and do not support vouchers. It isn’t really an effective way to win votes – try to make people feel stupid.
Your boss is doing great work, Patrick is a wonderful, passionate guy. People would vote for vouchers if PFC, IVP and others took the high road, voters respect that. People respect Patrick Byrne for what he is doing, it’s these other groups that we don’t. Frankly, if the slimy legislators (mostly Curt Bramble) didn’t have his nasty paws all over it and PFC didn’t do these smear campaigns and manipulate ads a la KSL, Governor etc then I would probably vote for vouchers. Frankly though, I don’t trust them and I’m sure not the only one. Call it for what it is – a tax cut. If the pitch would have been –
“You can help public schools by giving a tax cut to people who leave the system which will leave more money (potentially, waits to be seen) in the system for fewer students” – then it would have worked. The “helping people help their kids” doesn’t work because no low wage minority (or average voter for that matter) can afford private school tuition and so people don’t buy it. I know there are scholarships and sacrifices but they will work on a very small basis, not with broad based support. Again, private contributions like the ones from Patrick Byrne and Jordan Clements are much more effective.
If the bill said “any school that accepts vouchers must submit themselves to yearly audits and certification testing” or added admissions review policies it would stand more of a chance in the minds of people because everyone knows that private schools are selective.
Whereas public schools operate with the mentality “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Private schools operated with “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door AS LONG AS THE STUDENT PERFORMS ON TEST RESULTS, DOESN’T HAVE ANY LEARNING ISSUES AND MAKES US LOOK GOOD!”
By Jordy, November 4, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
@Mark
I doubt the ads are intended to make anyone feel stupid. They are there to clear up misleading statements like those I cited in my post.
I actually don’t work for Patrick anymore, but I agree that he’s a wonderful person. As for taking the high road, I think the pro-voucher folks have been much more forthright in their arguments than the anti-voucher crowd.
Honestly. I don’t know anything about Curt Bramble’s slimly paws or anybody else’s. I’m not saying your allegations are untrue or even unlikely –I really just don’t know anything about them. What I do know is that this is a good bill that will be good for Utah families, and the NEA is trying to kill it by calling it a “liberal subsidized entitlement program”. That’s politics in its finest (worse): the pot calling the kettle black.
If it really were just a cut it, referendum 1 would sail right through in Utah, right? This issue is about much more. It’s about a parent’s choice in their kid’s education.
Everyday people can and do pay for private school already. Not only will this $3000 hep them, but it will spurn competition which drives costs down. Don’t underestimate market forces. They work everywhere else, and they can work for education too if Referendum 1 isn’t killed on the vine.
Besides, if everyday parents can’t afford private school it’s because they already have to pay for public school at the exorbitant price of $7500 per child per year and would have to incur even greater “switching costs” on top of that. Who can afford that? There are many private schools in Utah for less than $4500 annually.
I think that’s a gross generalization, There are many private schools that turn nobody away. After all, they have profit incentive to make it work for anybody that’s willing and able to pay for inclusion. Referendum one will see to it that children who are already willing will also be able to attend.
This is the same, trite generalization. But since were doing mock poetry here’s mine on the public school system:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning (but never quite being allowed) to breathe free, Give me your discontent, your under-served,and all who long to be educated elsewhere. Give me everybody and every dime they have and I will force them to respect me and my lamp only. Some I well let gaze upon my golden door, but those who cannot must either be rich or deal with it.
PS. I need more money.”