True education, said David O. McKay, "does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature or art, but in the development of character. True education awakens a desire to conserve health by keeping the body clean and undefiled. True education trains in self-denial and self-mastery. True education regulates the temper, subdues passion, and makes obedience to social laws and moral order a guiding principle of life. It develops reason and inculcates faith in the living God as the eternal, loving Father of all."

We look in vain for such education among the nation's public school system, which explains the exodus from that system.

In many ways, public schooling is no longer synonymous with education. Horace Mann's promise of secular salvation through coercive taxation and compulsory attendance has proven hollow, and the myths perpetuated by public school apologists are beginning to rust.

Rather than detract from educational efforts, legislative bills providing for school choice would return educational oversight to parents, where it belongs. As the LDS Church stated in its Church Educational System Policy Statement of Nov. 16, 2002, "The manner of education is considered to be the parent's decision."

It is the responsibility of parents to bring up their children in light and truth -- something that public schools have proven woefully incapable of doing.

We kid ourselves if we think public school children aren't getting religion, despite the fact that a local junior high school student was sent home recently for the egregious act of wearing a "CTR" T-shirt.

In the words of Boyd K. Packer, "Moral values are being neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism, the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters are proselyted to a conduct without morality."

One Utah public school apologist recently opined that "marginal and extreme political, social, and religious views and practices" would proliferate as result of school choice. Such nonsense is laughable given that our public school system is held hostage by the extreme views of a judicial oligarchy that, over the past five decades, has stripped American education of its spiritual birthright. If Utah embraces school choice, what happens, then, to the sacrosanct core curriculum, the so-called educational standards, and the scores on standardized testsfi They improve, of course. Improvement, advancement, and innovation always occur when competition is unleashed. The fact that students in the private school that my children attend average above the 80th percentile in standardized testing evidences that fact.

As for the myth that private schools are the playground of the wealthy elite, I invite you to our school's 100-year-old building in Spanish Fork. There, you'll meet middle-class patrons who scrimp and sacrifice and take second jobs in order to provide their children with an education that welcomes God and the fruits of instruction unencumbered by dumbed-down government standards and politically correct propaganda. There, you'll meet a mix or ordinary children who enjoy extraordinary educational success.

Despite the dedication of public school administrators and teachers, the public system is an aging socialistic failure that cannot be saved by technology or taxes. Without competition and genuine parental choice, it will continue to set new lows in its slide toward educational irrelevance.

Let's give choice a chance. All of Utah's children deserve "a true education."

No excuses.

Michael Morris is a member of the board of trustees of American Heritage School of Spanish Fork.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.