Complete Coverage

A Choice Showdown

In a conservative state, where the public schools remain popular, an ambitious new voucher program faces a fierce ballot challenge.

Salt Lake City

Claudia Cornejo de Burnett’s hopes for sending her daughter to a private school in Utah rest with the outcome of a Nov. 6 referendum.

A Mexican immigrant who came to the United States 12 years ago, she can’t afford several thousand dollars a year for tuition, but she wants her 9-year-old daughter to go to a Catholic school—just as Ms. Cornejo de Burnett did while growing up in Mexico. If Utah voters affirm a new voucher program enacted by the state legislature, Ms. Cornejo de Burnett and all other parents of public school students will be eligible to receive up to $3,000 per child to send their children to secular or religious private schools.

But parents such as Ms. Cornejo de Burnett are countered by others who feel differently about vouchers, and whose opposition has set off a multi-million-dollar battle that has drawn partisans to Utah...