While New Yorkers scratch their heads over what to make of the new report cards for New York City public schools and while they thrill to the feud between the Department of Education and Diane Ravitch, a drama has been unfolding that holds out the possibility of delivering a real report card on schools — in, of all places, Utah. Voters in the Mormon State yesterday were deciding whether to approve what would be the first state-wide voucher plan in America. It was too soon to say, at our press time, what the outcome would be, though the betting was that vouchers would lose, after a huge influx of cash by the teachers unions against the proposal. But it was not too soon to draw inspiration from the battle that has been taking place there — and to sense that we should have one here.

The action moved into high gear in February, when Utah’s legislature put the state on a course to join such locales as Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the District of Columbia by giving parents a choice in deciding which schools their youngsters could attend, and even providing vouchers for private education. As has so often been the case in the movement for parental choice, the Utah drive became something of a struggle by minority parents to give their children the same chances wealthier families enjoy. Simply by signing a form parents would be able to tell the Utah public schools their 40% graduation rate for black and Latino students and 28% failure rate on No Child Left Behind standards were just not good enough.

This hasn’t sat well with the teachers unions. That is to say, the persons standing in the way of dissolving the Utah government’s monopoly on schooling are the people inside it. The biggest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association, has sent at least $3 million west from its headquarters in Washington, and the American Federation of Teachers in Utah, is chipping in, marshalling its AFL-CIO connections — pipe workers, steel workers, carpenters — to get out the anti-voucher vote last night.

The union claims the program will hurt public schools, though, in our view, the threat would be all too mild. The Utah voucher program leaves the state’s $3.5 billion education coffers untouched; vouchers ranging between $500 and $3,000, depending on a parent’s income, are taken from the state’s general fund. Lost children could even be a boon to schools. For five years out, schools will receive funds even for those who have left. This is a flaw in the program, as the ability of vouchers to animate reform of public education in Utah would be greater were they in fact to drain money from the public schools.

As it is, the unions are claiming that vouchers will only help the rich, since they would not cover fully the tuition of many of the state’s private schools. This, however, amounts to an argument for larger vouchers, tugging the full $7,500 the state now spends on each student out of the public school coffers and into the taxpaying parents’ hands. But in assuming poorer parents will be scared off by the extra dollars they’ll have to put up on their own, opponents err. Hundreds of parents in the state already sacrifice for their children, cleaning toilets on weekends and selling their cars — all in a pitch to get access to a private school the market has allowed to teach their children efficiently, comprehensively, and maybe even with reference to God. Even modest vouchers would ease those sacrifices.

The voucher fight in Utah has been helped in large part by a wealthy individual who also happens to have been a close friend of the late Milton Friedman, who two generations ago had the epiphany that became the idea for vouchers. Going into the election, our Elizabeth Green reported, the latest polls suggested that 56% opposed the voucher plan and only 36% were in favor. For the moment, we may learn overnight that the union has once again managed to deny parents a choice.

Yet if the mood in New York is any indication the battle is surely not over yet. Reviewing this week’s school report cards, even a supporter of public education, Joseph Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, seemed to have hit a breaking point. Mr. Williams said that, despite graduating from an elementary school with a C and now in middle school, his own son is “significantly underprepared.” He said: “I almost think we should send the kids to private schools at night, just so that we can survive the city’s public schools by day.” The question that invites is so plain that it’s just a tragedy our elected officials refuse to step up.