Business Community Split on Vouchers
None by KCPW
(KCPW News) Add big business to the list of people supporting school vouchers in Utah. Well some businesses, anyway. KCPW's Julie Rose reports the Salt Lake Chamber is conspicuously absent from the debate thus far:
Members of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce are so divided on vouchers that Vice President Natalie Gochnour says they're struggling to take a position on the issue. Several prominent CEOs are fed up with the delay and now running their own campaign in support of school choice.
Merit Medical CEO Fred Lampropoulos heads the group, which also includes the CEOs of Questar, Overstock-dot-com, Wheeler Machinery and a dozen professional associations. Lampropoulos says they're unhappy with the large class sizes and quality of public school education in Utah. The group is distributing form letters to business leaders, asking them to promote vouchers to their employees as the only alternative to massive tax hikes in funding the future of public education.
Gochnour says the Salt Lake Chamber may still take a position on vouchers before the election.
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1. Jay Blain said:
So Lampropoulos and his ilk are unhappy with large class sizes. Do I see any of them turning down all of the large tax breaks given them to help with the situation. I think not.
3. Traci England said:
Big business are "unhappy with the large class sizes and quality of public school education in Utah." Why aren't they putting their efforts into lowering class sizes and improving public school education? Instead, they support the creation of a second education system? This is like buying new living room furniture when the pipes are leaking.
4. N. Unck said:
Would just like to know when the last time one of these blow holes attended a public school class. I think Utah teachers do an excellent job keeping their thumbs in the dike. If it wasn't for public schools, I'm sure there would be no Merit Medical, Questar, or Overstock dot ripoff. If Gouchnour and the other council members vote for vouchers, they will join along with a state legislature that are deaf and blind when it comes to their constituencies.
2. Tom Nedreberg said:
Just another example of how big business wants something for nothing. They want an educated work force but dno't want to help pay for it. Then they want vouchers thinking that private schools could educate our children for less then the most underfunded state in the nation does. Maybe we should just send our kids to China or India for 12 years, educate them there, spend a lot less doing it and be done with their education. Vouchers are not the answer and having big business advocate them when jobs are leaving the USA because they don't want to pay US employees smakes of self interest. I'm voting NO on Referendum 1. I don't want to subsidize private education along with big business.