Public school teachers are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. They deserve our respect and support. But the education lobby led by the UEA, educational administrator groups and the Utah School Board Association deserves no respect for their campaign to defeat Referendum 1. There are real reasons to oppose Referendum 1, but the education lobby has chosen to ignore such issues and concentrate their campaign on distortion and deception. Educators have a special obligation to be intellectually honest. They have not met that burden.

The voucher opponents constantly emphasize that the $429 million estimated for the voucher program could be spent on public schools, leaving the impression the money is being taken from them. This is only true in the sense that money spent one place could be spent another. UDOT could just as legitimately run ads saying the $429 million could be spent on highways. More importantly, the education lobby ignores the fact that funds per student will increase with the proposed program. These same school administrators always direct our attention to per student funding except when opposing vouchers. They conveniently disregard the fact that the proposed program will increase total resources allocated to K-12 education in Utah. For the next five years as educators know, private spending on K-12 education will increase and public funding will stay the same if a voucher program is implemented. They do not want voters to understand this because it undermines their financial claims. Beyond the five year horizon, any reasonable projection would show that vouchers will increase per pupil funding for all K-12 students.

Voucher opponents also emphasize that the money spent on vouchers could be spent to reduce class size, enhance teaching and increase salaries. True, but again deceptive because they ignore the additional private money drawn into education that would help reduce class size and enhance quality more. They even argue that class size might increase if the referendum passes. How could this possibly happenfi If voucher students leave, will school administrators turn around and punish the students who remain by firing extra teachers in order to raise the class size even though they have more money per studentfi

Like all of us, the education lobby does not like competitors. They have a near-monopoly and they see no value in competition between public schools and private schools. They point to selective studies that have found no difference in performance between private and public schools. As a matter of logic, that result is not evidence against the value of competition in education. Assume a study found the unlikely result that the U.S. Postal Service, UPS and FedEx all did about the same job of delivering packages. Would we conclude that the competition of private carriers with the postal service had not improved package deliveryfi Just as higher education benefits from private universities and colleges competing with public institutions, K-12 education should benefit from more private-public competition. Competition promotes efficiency and places more power in the hands of consumers -- in this case, parents and students.

Referendum 1 is the most important vote of recent memory. Our decision should be based on rational, fair arguments. If you doubt the ability of parents to act in the best interest of their children, you may want to vote against vouchers. If you believe the increase in private schools will further fragment Utah society, you may consider a negative vote. But if you do vote against Referendum 1, you should be aware that you are voting for the status quo in Utah education as well as a somewhat higher future tax burden. But please ignore the bogus arguments that educational resources will decline with vouchers or that increased competition will harm Utah education. Even in a political campaign, educators have a moral duty to educate rather than brainwash.

• Clayne L. Pope is a professor of economics at Brigham Young University