One of the most amazing facts about the money being spent on the November voucher referendum was published in this morning's Trib but it wasn't inside the big story, it was at the very end of it:
If all the money spent on the referendum campaign so far went directly to the classroom, it would have:
* Paid to educate 380 Utah public school students;
* OR covered the annual costs of 17 average-sized classrooms;
* OR funded a year's education, with plenty left over, of all 310 students enrolled last year in the Piute School District.
* OR provided 1,143 private-school vouchers, with a mean value of $1,750.
Sources: The Utah Foundation, The State Office of Education, U.S. Department of Education, and campaign disclosures.
And we still can't afford to invest more in Utah's public schools.
This debate has national implications, all right. A lot of people outside Utah have a lot riding on the decisions that Utah voters will make on November 6. And it appears that the only upside is the boost to Utah's economy, particularly to the broadcast companies here.
Utah's school voucher referendum decision has escalated into a $2.6 million battle, with most of the cash being raised and spent by voucher opponents.
With less than two months before the referendum election Nov. 6, voucher supporters, led by Parents for Choice in Education, have spent more than $500,000 - $128,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a citizens' referendum petition drive against the measure. The figures come from financial reports Monday to the Lieutenant Governor's Office. The money is going into a blitz of radio and television advertisements.
But there's something fishy going on, in my opinion. I haven't been able to look at the most recent finance filing yet -- they're not posted online at the Utah Reporting System yet -- but the Trib article says here (http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6924903) that All Children Matter of Michigan isn't participating. I find that hard to believe, since the voucher plan was its plan from the beginning, and it has spent so much money to get the legislature to adopt it.
Absent from the fray, so far, is the national pro-voucher group All Children Matter, which spent $240,000 in Utah elections last year to elect legislators who favor vouchers. That national group reported spending "zero" on the Utah referendum.
Zero? Is that true? Or is there a way to spend outside money in Utah and not have to report it under state law? Is there a loophole?
I mean, it's obvious where the opposition is getting its support. The filings show that Utah teachers have called back a lot of contributions from their umbrella organization, NEA. The only mystery there is that Parents for Choice in Education have been saying for a while that they expected NEA to send $3 million or more into the debate, but NEA's actual contribution is half that amount. So where is All Children Matter? Is it just letting Patrick Byrne spend his money on its plan?
Absent from the fray, so far, is the national pro-voucher group All Children Matter, which spent $240,000 in Utah elections last year to elect legislators who favor vouchers. That national group reported spending "zero" on the Utah referendum.
A pivotal local contributor to the voucher effort is Utah entrepreneur Patrick Byrne. The founder and head of Overstock.com has pumped $290,000 into the "yes" effort. Byrne has single-handedly financed a Republican legislators' PAC, Informed Voter Project, with a $200,000 donation.
I'll tell you this: If I had $290,000 of ready cash to spend however I wanted, I don't think I'd create a political action committee with it.
Come to think of it, how many other individual Utahns have contributed $290,000 on either side of the voucher debate? What about $29,000? Probably only a handful, like PCE's founders and Rick Koerber. What about $290? Or $29? I suspect there are hundreds or thousands who have kicked in something in the neighborhood of $29, and I suspect we know which argument they support in the debate, compared to the handful of deep-pocketed businessmen who are supporting a different argument. But I won't know for certain until the finance filings are online. I'll keep my eyes open.
2 comments:
In ACM's case, you're right to be skeptical. The PAC has a history of shuffling money around so that it's practically impossible to see where it came from and who donated it.
I suspect they will just wait until after this filing has been posted or even until the very end so we won't be able to expose them. They are very good at hiding the money, letting PCE front the dollars and then reimbursing the expenses to avoid the reporting deadlines.
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