Vicky, I agree though I am not sad by what you face. I'm glad you face it. Tough lesson to learn.

Back in 1993 a very liberal Republican Governor by the name of Mike Leavitt worked with the UEA to disenfranchise conservative voters.

There was a conservative on the State School Board by the name of Jay Lichty that the UEA wanted off. They ran an election against him and he still won. So they went to the Education Governor Mike Leavitt and came up with our current system.

The people wanted one thing, the UEA and Mike Leavitt wanted another. So they created this Soviet style election scheme where the high and mighty elite get to be the primary. And they will give you two "worthy" people to vote for during the general election.

Do you hate it? Or do you only hate it because they disagree with you? Or do you want to take over this Soviet style system to put two anti-voucher people on the ballot?

I hope the entire board becomes pro-voucher. It will serve the UEA right for giving us this Soviet style election.

How about a little freedom once the lesson is learned?

Your mistake Vicie is that you think we live in a democracy. We don't. We live in a Republic where the government is run by elected and appointed individuals. And even for the elected people we dont really have much choice because all our choices for elected individuals are chosen by a very small minority of party activists.

In the end the people who want vouchers will win because Utah is a republican state and vouchers is where the money is.

and just like the major civil rights issues in our country's history, those who are afraid of change will fight tooth and nail against the rights of the minorities.

Utah's minority children would most benefit from vouchers. Our achievement gap among white students and minority students is the widest in the western states and growing. Places like Milwaukee that have choice through vouchers for low income students are closing the gap.

The legislature got vouchers right. The people are wrong, just as the majority were wrong for a long time in other civil rights issues.

And just like with other civil rights issues, it is only a matter of time before this one is resolved for the people.

Ask the 20-somthings with little children how they feel about being coerced into sending their child to the neighborhood school. They are free thinkers and it doesn't sit well with them. It doesn't make sense and they won't tolerate it for long.

It is just going to take a few more years, perhaps a decade or two, for the older, bigoted generation to die out before the right thing is done for kids and families.

I too am in district 11 and am FURIOUS. Not only are the pro voucher, but they BOTH have large personal investments and interests in CHARTER SCHOOLS. How are they supposed to represent the public good when they are beholden to their OWN special interests? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE research the write in candidates and pick one of them!

I agree. I live in Box Elder county and I have no good choice for state school board. I wish we could write in a candidate because both of my candidates are pro-voucher. How did it come to this? There is no reason for the state school board to be partisan. This is outrageous.

While we are fighting about issues that hardly make a bit if difference, math education in Utah has gone to he__ in a handbasket, lets focus on what actually matters.

To: Wake up Utah

I teach in a regular public school and we DO focus on what actually matters. And, just so some other posters will know, over 80% of the teachers at my school belong to the "evil" UEA. Furthermore, 100% of the math teachers in my building are UEA members.

The math scores at my school are through the roof. We have focused on math (and many other areas) over the past several years and have added many great programs to our math curriculum. We have a 25 minute "math tutoring" program that runs during the regular school day four times a week. We have a dedicated math lab where students can receive remedial math help. Oh, and by the way, I'm not a math teacher.

Please don't label all public schools in Utah. Many (if not most) regular public schools in Utah have EXCELLENT math programs where students are thriving and succeeding. Hats off to most math teachers in Utah!

VOUCHER WERE AND STILL ARE A JOKE! I can't believe people are still trying to defend them.

Utah was picked by some radicals from back east to be a state backwards enough to pass them. So they pumped in their big time east coast money thinking they could take over the state education system.

It worked by buying of the legislature (see ethics committee hearings). Fortunately Utah has one of the best education systems in the USA and the people saw right through the joke.

Vouchers and Charters are the biggest joke of any program to hit our state.

But it has been nice to get the whacko parents out of the normal schools.

@ 8:55

It has been proven that vouchers WILL NOT most benefit those minority school children who cannot otherwise afford private schooling. Even with vouchers, the price will still be far great.
The people that will most benefit are the wealthy who already want/will send their kids to a private school. Essentially, they get hundreds of dollars back for sending their kids to the school that they want.

I seem to remember that Gov. Norman Bangerter was the one to change the State School Board election from a non-partisan, fully elected by the people to a non-partisan committee nominated and governor choses the two for the ballot system. I believe that Gov. Leavitt changed it from a committee for each district to one committee for the entire state.

The first problem is when we went from voting for all members, even if that meant a primary election, to a committee choosing for us. The second problem is when we went from a committee appointed for every district to a single committee for the entire state. Where we still had a little bit of local control with the district committees, all the members had to live in the district that they were on the committee for, we now have no local control.

I suppose we could all apply for the job and hope to overwhelm the committee with pro-education candidates and try to get the committee to understand that State School Board should have members that are invested in, concerned about and what to see public education succeed.

Vickie, you will have more of a say in how your school runs if vouchers are enacted. They will push the public schools to actually compete, which will be a good thing, and will help the schools to improve. One of those improvements will likely be getting rid of many of the public school policies that don’t make sense. Vouchers (or tuition tax credits) are good for public schools.

How does taking money OUT of public schools and giving it to rich people who ALREADY send their kids to private school, help public schools?

Vouchers are a scam. It's the one thing I can give the people of Utah credit for. They fall for the most idiotic things, but even the sheeple in our great state didn't fall for vouchers.

Bangerter changed it from partisan (ie Republican versus Democrat) to non-partisan. It was Leavitt who added the committee process. It was post 2000 sometime that they changed it to it's current form.

It is pure Soviet-style election to have any form of a committee to decide only those who are "pro-education" on the ballot. If I understand your post I am deeply disappointed. If I understand your response you are basically saying a local committee process is OK since it is local values who would ensure "pro-education" types are on the ballot.

If I understand you correctly, that is not democracy. That is an apprachek right out of the Eastern Block.

Completely different subject then that of free elections, vouchers: We already do vouchers in this state. They are called either charter schools or higher education.

In both cases tax dollars follow the students based on where they choose to enroll.

So what we are really debating is the evil of a word (vouchers) AND the degree of oversight relative to where the tax dollars are spent.

What I hear is that people are satisfied with the level of oversight in charter schools and higher education, not private schools.