It looks like school vouchers are on their way to becoming reality.

House Bill 148, which would allow all Utah families to claim a voucher between $500 and $3,000 to put their children in a private school, narrowly cleared the House and passed the Senate after senators suspended the usual rules for two votes on the measure.

Gov. Huntsman is now in the driver's seat. He is expected to sign the bill.

First, let us commend Rep. Steven Urquhart, R-St. George, and his supporters from Parents for Choice in Education for coming up with a bill that could address concerns that derailed the legislation in the past. For example, the value of a voucher is based on a family's income, with wealthier people getting a smaller voucher. That should neutralize the criticism that vouchers are a government subsidy for the rich.

Also included is a built-in safety cushion for public school funding. Students who move to a private school will still be counted for five years, so school districts won't be losing money.

Legislative appropriations start to kick in with $9.3 million in fiscal 2008. The money grows to $12.4 million in fiscal 2009.

As with any bill with long-range effects, this one had to draw a starting line somewhere. Consequently, no one who is currently attending a private school will be eligible for a voucher. The program only rolls forward. Vouchers will be offered as parachutes for families who are trying to bail out of public schools, not for those who have already made the jump.

This is a reasonable approach, although it will make a few people unhappy. When Congress enacted capital gains exemptions for primary residences in the mid-1990s, it made the exemptions retroactive only by a few months. People who sold their homes before the statutory retro date still had to pay capital gains taxes.

Utah's school vouchers will work the same way. If you've already enrolled your student, you don't get a voucher. Sorry. It's annoying but necessary in creating such a sweeping program.

Critics of vouchers raise yet another concern about those who already attend private schools. Parents, they say, could take their kids out for a year to establish eligibility for the state voucher, then turn around and enroll them in private school again. Such churn would not be good for either private or public schools, nor would it be healthy for the kids.

We don't think there is much real danger that such game-playing will go on, or that it will have great impact if it does. If parents have the financial means and motivation to have put their kids in a private school, odds are that they're probably very unhappy with the public schools. They're unlikely to sacrifice their children for a few bucks. If the Legislature felt otherwise, it would have built some protections into the final version of the bill.

In theory, vouchers are a great idea. They support the individual. They boost the best and brightest toward their full potential. In the opening words of Urquhart's bill, "parents are presumed best informed to make decisions for their children, including the educational setting that will best serve their children's interests and educational needs."

We agree. Yet we would have liked to see a pilot program before a full-scale launch. A limited test might have provided some valuable insights into the impact of vouchers in Utah. While it is true that other states are offering vouchers with great success, Utah may have unique issues. After all, one-fourth of our population consists of children. Most of the land in the state is exempt from property taxes. And we have some of the largest class sizes and the lowest per-pupil spending in the nation. What works in Wisconsin may not work as well here.

Another missing safety valve is a sunset clause. We would have preferred one. A legislative review for reauthorization, say after five years, would have been healthy. That approach worked with the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which was set to expire in 2006. The sunset clause forced Congress to examine the new law's effects. The act was reauthorized, but with some key adjustments. The same approach would have worked for vouchers.

We would have liked to hedge our bets.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.

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