Would Idaho public school students benefit if their schools were getting an extra $50 million this year? You might say, “Yes!” yet now that citizens and even a school board are suing the state for unconstitutionally grabbing money from public school students, the appropriators of that giveaway are crying, “Foul!”
The Republican majority in the legislature and Gov. Brad Little agreed it was more important to take $50 million of your tax dollars and give it to parents of students attending private and religious schools in Idaho.
The move, it was House Bill 93 (HB93), was labeled a “tax credit.” Call it anything you want, but that $50 million is not chump change and it’s no longer available for public schools.
You know Idaho spends less on its public schools than ANY other state. We’ve been dead last on public school funding for quite a while.
For comparison, the poorest funded schools adjacent to Idaho are in Utah, and they get about 15 percent more than our schools. Washington spends almost twice as much as Idaho on public schools. Wyoming spends even more.
There’s a reason out-of-state recruiters wait outside Idaho education colleges to hire recent graduates. It’s not because the grads want to leave. It’s that with what we can pay, they simply can’t afford to stick around.
Last week, the school board in Moscow voted to join public school teachers in a lawsuit challenging HB93. Chris Cargill, founder of the far-right advocacy group Mountain States Policy Center, took the Moscow board to task for what he felt was leaving parents no choice in schools for their kids.
If you read the court document and HB93, it’s apparent Cargill may be confused about the suit.
This is not a question of whether private schools have a place in Idaho education. Of course they do.
This is not a question of whether parents have a right to send their children to private schools. That right has long been enshrined in our state constitution.
The question is whether the legislature should “maintain a general, uniform, thorough, public, free, and common system of public schools,” as the Idaho constitution says it must, or whether the legislature should divert tens of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars every year to subsidize private schools.
The fact is, Idaho does not pay an even remotely adequate salary to its teachers and staff, nor does it fund the resources those dedicated educators need to do their jobs. There’s a reason teacher pay in Idaho is dismal.
Idaho has consistently ranked at or near the bottom in public school funding per student, placing 51st for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, according to Idaho Education News. The National Education Association (NEA) reported Idaho spent $8,376 per pupil in 2020-21, significantly below the national average, and has been the lowest-funded state according to the Education Law Center.
The national average for public school funding per student was about $15,633 in fiscal year 2022. That year, Idaho appropriated barely more than 60 percent of that average. That’s based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances.
Cargill criticizes Idaho’s public schools harshly. That may be because he grew up in a state, Washington, that has public schools funded with almost TWICE as much money per student as Idaho’s schools are.
HB93 was well-crafted. It was presented as a bill to expand “school choice” for low-income Idahoans.
Limiting the bill’s tax “credit” to those earning only 300 percent of the federal poverty level makes it sound like only poor folks will benefit from the private school subsidy, doesn’t it?
Do you know how much only “300 percent of the federal poverty level” is? Just for a family of 4, it’s more than $96,000 a year. A great many university professors in Idaho qualify for this tax credit.
Someone making $96,000 a year who has a choice between sending their kids to Idaho’s underfunded public schools or a shiny new private school shouldn’t be criticized for making that decision. They just don’t qualify as the starving poor.
The bottom line is Idaho’s constitution says public schools need and deserve adequate funding from the legislature. HB93 takes money that otherwise might be spent on public schools. The lawsuit over HB93 is that simple.
(1) comment
This bill was written and supported by outsiders, i.e. not from Idaho. One outsider is an education company hoping to benefit monetarily by private voucher recipients. Legislators who supported this bill, in violation of the Idaho State Constitution, benefit from wealthy donors who want the taxpayers to pay for their children's private school education. The bill is a scam in every way. It's all about money, ours not theirs.
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