When more than 25 percent of high school seniors in the public schools fail a basic academic competency test, it seems fair to ask whether the school system is failing Utah. With a number like that, it's hard to defend it as a roaring success.

A quarter of students tested failed at least one of the three parts of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test, whose results were released earlier this month. State law requires students to pass all three basic skills sections, and they get up to five attempts, starting as sophomores. Of 36,545 seniors enrolled last October, 22.4 percent failed math, 20 percent failed writing and 15.8 percent failed reading. That's a shabby showing.

But here's the kicker: Vouchers are available to pay for the tutoring of students who fail the test -- in short, for a better education -- and Utah's anti-voucher voices are not to be heard. In fact, the more times a student fails, the more tutoring money is available from the state. The Legislature appropriated $7.5 million for the program.

Yes, you read correctly. Vouchers are available for students who need a better brand of education. The vouchers are worth $500, $1,000 or $1,500, depending on how bad the student is. Students with the lowest competency scores are eligible for the most money, which can be used to pay for a private -- yes, private -- tutoring program, or for a program sponsored by a public school district.

Strangely, the teachers union and others in the public education lobby who are vehemently opposed to vouchers for school choice do not seem to object to these tutoring vouchers, which are clearly aimed at providing the education that the public school system failed to deliver.

This is identical in principle, in our view, to helping students get a better education through school choice. If the public school system is failing a child, as determined by the most interested party, the parent, then state money should also help that child attain a better education through a long-term tutoring program known as a private school.

If you're not complaining about the tutoring program, you shouldn't complain about school choice.

While Utah's public schools deserve credit for the good work they do, it remains a painful truth that some of our best and brightest students are slowed by large classes, limited resources and government mandates.

School choice vouchers are a philosophically sound answer for some of them. After all, when the politics are stripped away, the system is supposed to work for the students. Tax-funded education is not primarily about creating government employees. It's about creating an educated generation of Americans.

Opponents to vouchers frequently claim that using tax dollars to pay a private entity to accomplish a public purpose is wrong. In fact, this is done all the time. Highways, for example, are built by private contractors; trash is collected by others; state-funded mental health services are provided by others.

And now we find that public money is being made available -- stunningly without objection from the anti-voucher crowd -- to help failing students acquire a remedial education that is made necessary by a weak public school system.

Their silence signals their assent in principle to the use of vouchers for education.

Voucher opponents miss the mark when they say that private education is the sole financial responsibility of parents. This might hold water if education were not imposed by force of law, or if public education were proved generally superior to private, or if the voucher program as passed by the Legislature was going to hurt school finances.

None of these is the case. The Legislature provided bridge money to protect the public school system during the initial transition years, and a windfall remains behind as a bonus to the public system. Of the $5,000 to $7,500 of taxpayer dollars that go to support a single student annually in public school, vouchers would drain only $500 to $3,000, depending on the recipient's income. The entire cost of that student goes away, except for some costs that can be temporarily assigned to capital infrastructure. That leaves a substantial surplus for fewer remaining students per taxpayer in the public system.

Thus, on the financial merits alone, vouchers present a winning argument.

But, of course, much more is at stake than money. Parents have a moral obligation to see that their children rise to their full potential. If the public system is failing, they have a duty to try something else.

So long as education remains compulsory under the law, the state should help them do it.

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What do you thinkfi

Are school choice voucher opponents inconsistentfi Send your comments to dhpolls@heraldextra.com or call 344-2942. Please leave your name, hometown and phone number with your comments. E-mail comments should not exceed 100 words; voice-mail comments should be no longer than 30 seconds. Anonymous and unverifiable responses will not be published.

The Daily Herald will publish comments on June 24.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A6.