Salt Lake Trib Shills for NEA

I've been following Utah's voucher battle off and on for the past several months and have become increasingly discouraged that this statewide ballot measure may go down to defeat at the polls tomorrow. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized against the pro-voucher measure today, helping the NEA do its dirty work, and thus helping assure that disadvantaged Utahns, like their brothers and sisters across the U.S. have no choice but to attend increasingly lousy public schools.

As is so often the case these days, the editorial begins, not with an argument but by smearing proponents backing this perfectly logical measure, which is, essentially, an endorsement of freedom of choice:

The Republican legislative leadership would have you believe that the voucher law on Tuesday's ballot is a solution to the problems plaguing education in Utah. It is not. Rather, it is a product of right-wing ideologues far from Utah who would like nothing better than to take education out of the hands of the taxpaying Americans who pay for it and turn it over to private interests.

Excuse me? "Right-wing ideologues far from Utah" want to take education out of the hands of taxpaying Americans? Excuse me? Voucher measures, in fact, cause quite the opposite to happen. Vouchers take a helping of the same tax money that goes to support overpaid, tenured NEA teachers who run underperforming public schools and channel it instead to the parents, allowing them to opt-out of this corrupt monopoly and sending their children to privately or religiously-run schools. The children thus have access to schools that will provide them with a safe environment (as opposed to public schools) as well as with a LEARNING environment, as opposed to the socialist re-education camps run by NEA deadbeats more interested in showing Al Gore's bogus movie than in teaching science, reading, and the arts to their malleable young charges.

Apparently, the left-wing ideologue who penned the Trib's anti-choice editorial has no problem, however, turning over "the taxpayers' money" to his or her fellow left-wing ideologues in the NEA's re-education combine. What a joke. The left is famous for accusing its innocent opposition of the sins they themselves regularly commit.

In addition, while denouncing allegedly right-wing out of state support for this measure, the Trib editorial writer neglects to mention the substantial, and indeed, LARGER amount of money flooding in from LEFT-WING out of state interests. Apparently, though, that's okay, because they're smart and we're not. But let's get back to the Trib's editorial rant:

Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by a groundswell of opposition to vouchers by a populace unwilling to compromise their neighborhood schools by allowing tax revenue to be siphoned off to pay private school tuition.

Wrong again. Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by well-funded socialists, spearheaded by the NEA which takes no prisoners when defending its monopoly on re-education camps, I mean public schools. These people are also ideologues by the way, proving that some ideologues are more equal than others. But wait, there's more:

Beyond the radical political and philosophical goals of the voucherites, there are other sound reasons for pounding a stake through the heart of this perennial push on Capitol Hill: the potential of vouchers to rob public schools of funding, and the questionable constitutionality of sending public funds to religion-based private schools.

Note the hyper-heated rhetoric here. Supporters of vouchers are "voucherites," a sly adaptation of 19th century anti-Catholic know-nothing rhetoric. Worse, the Trib's writer, in effect, wants to "pound a stake through the heart" of these "voucherites," slanderously characterizing them as bloodsucking vampires. Which, of course, they are to the writer of this screed, since they are potentially sucking away $$$$, the lifeblood of the destructive NEA public school monopoly. Nowhere is it explained why the public schools are deserving of such a monopoly, nor is it shown why private schools are not.

The anti-religious tone here is unmistakable, taking on the same ugly cast as it did in the last century. In which century, by the way, Protestant religious readings and lessons were an expected part of public education, as exemplified in the McGuffey Readers, still in use by some home schoolers and a regular part of, surprise, the public school curriculum.

This diatribe masquerading as an editorial concludes with a self-righteous frenzy:

Utah's voucher law also fails as an antidote to the expected influx of 145,000 new students, many of them low-income immigrants, in the coming decade. Most poor families cannot afford private school for their children, even with a $3,000 voucher.

The bottom line on vouchers is simply this: Sending tax money to private schools is a bad idea. Vote "AGAINST" Referendum 1.

The voucher law was not intended as an "antidote to the expected influx" of new students. It was intended to help ALL students who wished to, to escape the clutches of the left-wing NEA-public school re-education combine. And the second sentence above is an outright falsehood. Most established private schools build or will build scholarship funds to fill the tuition gap for poorer students.

In poiny of fact, this editorial notwithstanding, it is demonstrably and measurably a "bad idea" to throw money down the hole of the unaccountable, corrupt, and failed public education system that holds a monopoly over our nation's public education system.

We'd urge sensible Utahns to ignore the Tribune's vicious and wrongheaded editorial screed and vote "FOR" Referendum 1. A "FOR" vote will do two things. First of all, it will improve education in Utah by breaking the left-wing NEA stranglehold on Utah's public schools. And second of all, it will send a strong message to the smug Marxist who wrote today's propaganda hit piece on a perfectly sensible piece of legislation that all right-thinking Utahns should be proud to endorse.