The editors of National Review eloquently sum up yesterday’s disappointing loss in the Utah school choice battle:
What was probably the most significant – and disappointing – outcome [of yesterday’s elections] involved school choice in Utah, which more than 60 percent of voters rejected on Tuesday. School-choice ballot initiatives have a long record of poor performance – just like many public schools, it might be said. Reformers had hoped that conservative Utah would prove different. Voters were asked to endorse a plan that their state legislature had narrowly adopted earlier this year, giving financial support to families that choose private schools for their children. The teacher unions poured money into the state – by one estimate, the National Education Association spent $1 for every teacher in the United States to defeat school choice in Utah. This effort crushed a local movement. The ultimate victims are kids who remain trapped in government-run schools, not just in Utah but in other states that might have found inspiration in Utah’s example, had it actually set one.
Read more here.