Utah School Choice

John Fund at the Wall Street Journal notes with much favor the passage of a state voucher bill in Utah.

The late Milton Friedman, who was the nation's foremost advocate for school choice, would be more than pleased with the news coming out of Utah. By a vote of 38-37, the Utah House last Thursday approved the first-ever statewide universal school choice plan.

Despite the close vote, the program now faces relatively smooth sailing. The bill now goes to the state Senate, which twice before has voted for a similar program. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, won election in 2004 in part by campaigning for school choice, and he has said he will likely sign the final bill.

So what made the difference, accroding to fund, four things:

• School choice supporters were persistent and relentless
• A profile in courage, changes in votes by education leaders in the state house
• Public opinion shifts
• Leadership in the State House.

At a time when everyone yells that school choice means taking money out of the traditional public schools,

State Rep. Steve Urquhart, the bill's chief sponsor, says the breakthrough in winning House approval was the realization that it wouldn't harm public education. The bill stipulated that for five years after a voucher student left the public system, the district would get to keep much of the money the state had paid for his education. Given that the average district gets $3,500 from the state and the average voucher is expected to be $2,000, a typical school district would gain some $1,500 every time a student left its system.

Mr. Urquhart was so confident of his math that he started an interactive Web site modeled after the interactive encyclopedia Wikipedia. He posted his bill on it and invited comments. Thousands of people logged on to www.politicopia.com and participated. "If anyone can show evidence (not just alarmist rhetoric) that public education does not come out financially ahead with this bill, post your arguments and data in the comment section," Mr. Urquhart challenged his readers. No one was able to effectively rebut him.

That is smart politics. Too often anti-choice efforts succeed because they are able to paint a picture where traditional public schools will simply wither and die because voucher money goes to private schools. Because such debates and persuasion happens in private, behind closed legislative doors or in committee hearings that the public at large is unable to attend, the anti-choice crowd succeeds. By making the debate a public forumn, Rep. Urquhart was able to demonstrate otherwise, by essentially throwing down the gauntlet publicly and daring the unions, et al, to prove him wrong. That is courage and that is smarts.

More on this to come.