The state of Utah is facing a vote about school vouchers that would allow parents access to public funds to pay for private school. But not everyone in Utah believes the vouchers are a good thing. As Sonia Woodbury, executive director of City Academy, a secondary public charter school, states, “The fallacy is to believe that vouchers will improve our ability to provide this type of good education. There is no direct correlation between the choice to send a child to a private school and the improvement of our educational system.” Woodbury goes on to say that school voucher money spent at private schools only takes away from what potentially could have been spent on public education and is a disservice toward all Utahns.

I am not sold on school vouchers either. I have nothing against private schools, but I agree with Woodbury that the goal of any state’s public education is to provide the best possible education to all the kids in the state. Taking away dollars from public schools and putting them into private schools is probably not the best way to do that. Or as Woodbury succinctly puts it, “What parents deserve is not vouchers, but quality public schools in every neighborhood.”