In Utah, You Work for the UEA

On November 6, Utahns will vote on a referendum to decide the fate of a statewide voucher program passed by the Utah legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year. As anyone who knows anything about public schooling would have predicted, the major force fighting against choice has been teacher unions, with the National Education Association (NEA) having donated at least $1.5 million to date to the anti-choice cause. And, as this article in yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune makes clear, defeating choice is an obsession for the state’s NEA affiliate, the Utah Education Association (UEA). Of course it is, because monopolists will stop at nothing to protect their monopoly. But this begs a question to which almost everyone must already know the answer, but many just won’t admit it: Who really works for whom? Do public school teachers work for the public, or does the public really work—and pay taxes—for the teachers?

The answer is all too clear, and that alone ought to make people in Utah, and around the country, support as much school choice as they can get.