The second part of the sentence gets the most attention, but pay heed to the first part as well:
“The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.”
That comes from — actually, it’s all of — Article IX, section 1 of the Idaho Constitution. And it’s the centerpiece of the legal argument filed this week by a group of public education advocates, including at least one school district.
It ought to be enough for the Idaho Supreme Court to throw out House Bill 93, passed in this year’s legislative session, which sets up a system of payouts (structured as tax credits) to people who say they want to use taxpayer money for private education of their school-age children. The program set to start in January is structured as a tax credit, up to $5,000 for most students and up to $7,500 for students with special needs. Again, the structuring of this approach as a tax measure seems designed to resist legal attacks, but the new lawsuit notes, “the ultimate result is appropriated public funds being used to pay private school tuition and fees.”
It’s not a knock on private schools or homeschooling to say that this bill has acres of problems. Paul Stark, the Idaho Education Association’s executive director, said last week (as many others have over the years this subject has been debated), “Private schools get taxpayer dollars without disclosing their curriculum, test scores or even requiring background checks. They can reject students based on religion, disability or anything else. This is not just unaccountable, it’s unfair, it’s unsafe and it’s unconstitutional.” There’s scarcely any accountability or transparency.
But what gets less mentioned is the benefit of public schools, which the Idaho constitution framers (and they were hardly alone around the nation) specifically wanted to support, although they were well aware of alternatives. They did not want to shut out those alternatives. But their take was that public schools had particular virtues which the state ought to encourage.
It is a broad general education, as defined over time by the public — the voters, the school boards, and, to some extent, the legislature. It provides a mechanism for preparing children for their adult roles in society, the governing, economic and beyond. It gives students a common frame of reference. Public schools are part of what allows us to communicate with each other, and at least in general, use a common base of information.
We can’t govern ourselves, as opposed to government by a dictator, otherwise.
Public education is more than classes, important as those are. It creates an immersion into community, an experience of getting along and even cooperating with a lot of people who aren’t exactly the same as you.
You can reasonably argue about how well the Idaho public school system delivers on “general, uniform and thorough.” It’s not perfect. I have concerns about that, and so may you, but the specifics of what is taught in the public schools are public and have been and will be debated in public, and grow out of what most people are looking for.
But “general, uniform and thorough” is the aspiration at least, while private forms of education are none of those things. They are alternatives to those goals. That’s not an argument for banning them, and there’s value in trying out alternatives; private education is legitimate, and some of it is very well done.
But to the extent we lost a common public education, we lose an important part of the glue holding us together. Private schools are there for private purposes, not public ones. The new lawsuit makes a similar point, and refers to a legal principle called the “public purpose doctrine.”
The Idaho Supreme Court would be right in deciding there’s no legislative authority, or legitimate public purpose, in requiring taxpayers to support private schools.
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