The state’s largest teachers union has filed its much-anticipated lawsuit trying to shut down Utah’s newly launched voucher program that is set to siphon more than $82 million from public schools.
Leaders of the Utah Education Association announced the challenge Wednesday morning, standing on the steps outside the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City and vowing to fight the voucher system they say is unconstitutional.
“It is a deliberate undermining of public education,” shouted UEA President Renée Pinkney, surrounded by parents and teachers. “…Utah already spends less on public school students than almost any other state.”
And now even more taxpayer money, Pinkney said, will be pulled from those underfunded Utah schools — second to last in the nation behind only Idaho — and shuffled to private schools and homeschooling under what’s been billed asthe Utah Fits All Scholarship.
“Our only option was a lawsuit,” she said.
The controversial Republican-led voucher proposal was initially pushed through in just 10 days during the 2023 legislative session. At that point, it was already the largest school voucher program in state history with an initial allocation of $42.5 million. But that price tag was nearly doubled this year to accommodate even more students.
With the initial rollout slated for this fall, it’s set to fund nearly 10,000 students who have each been awarded up to $8,000. Families can use that money to send their kids to private school, home-school them or get reimbursed for a wide range of educational-adjacent expenses, including things like piano lessons or ballet.
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.