Advocates of the tax credit cringe and protest when it is referred to as a “voucher tax credit.” That’s because the word voucher holds a negative connotation with the public and the voucher lobby wants Idahoans and their legislators to think the tax credit is harmless.

“People’s eyes get bleary, and they tune out when people start talking about tax credits,” says Kevin Welner, co-founder of the National Education Policy Center. “That helps avoid a situation where they respond to it the same way they respond to a voucher proposal.”

But there is nothing harmless about tax credits. They have the same negative effect on neighborhood schools as other programs such as education savings accounts (ESA) and scholarships. By providing money for private and religious schools, the tax credit will take money away from neighborhood schools and make it more difficult for the Legislature to meet its constitutional mandate to fund a free, uniform, and thorough public school system.

In Arizona, a similar tax credit costs that state’s general fund $272 million a year and Save Our Schools Arizona founder Beth Lewis projects that the cost will increase to $300 million later this year. In Florida, a tax credit for private and religious schools costs the Sunshine State $1 billion a year.

Voucher lobbyists also say the tax credit doesn’t violate the Idaho Constitution’s prohibition against using taxpayer dollars to fund religious schools because the money never reaches the general fund. Such a message cynically ignores the fact that the result is the same – tax credits divert taxpayers’ money to subsidize religious schools.

Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen and Sen. Kevin Cook, both eastern Idaho Republicans, rightly describe the tax credit as a “redistribution of wealth” as the average Idahoan pays $1,625 in income taxes, while the tax credit gives families $5,000 per child regardless of a family’s income.

Another issue is tax credits are often the first step toward passing universal education savings accounts or voucher scholarships. In states like Arizona and Florida, once a tax credit is adopted the voucher lobby moves on to pass these other voucher taxpayer subsidies which take even more money away from neighborhood schools.

In Arizona, the universal ESA program cost is projected to reach $900 million a year and Florida’s universal voucher program is estimated to cost taxpayers between $2 billion and $4 billion.

Why are the voucher lobbyists in Idaho turning to the tax credit? Because Idaho’s legislators have repeatedly rejected creating an education savings account. They obviously decided during the summer that a tax credit would be easier to pass.

Idaho’s legislators should not be fooled. If the tax credit passes, the voucher lobbyists will be back to expand it and they will continue pressuring lawmakers to pass an education savings account. The heat on lawmakers won’t subside – it will only get hotter.

If the voucher lobbyists are successful, Idaho will be in the same position as other states where these voucher-like programs are hurting funding for neighborhood schools, busting state budgets, and causing property taxpayers to raise their taxes just to keep their neighborhood schools open.

We cannot let that happen to our great state, its students, and taxpayers.

Unfortunately, for the taxpayers and school children of Arizona it is too late. That state is heading into a fiscal twilight zone thanks to the misguided decision two years ago to expand its Empowerment Savings Account (ESA) to every student and the skyrocketing expense of its longtime voucher tax-credit program.

The immediate concern in Idaho comes from legislation proposed by Rep. Wendy Horman and Sen. Lori De Hartog who last week announced they would sponsor a voucher tax-credit bill that would provide $5,000 for each student to attend a private or religious school and cost the state $50 million the first year and even more in future years. Other legislators are reportedly working on a voucher Education Savings Account (ESA) bill like the one in Arizona.

At first glance, the Horman-Den Hartog bill seems reasonable just as Arizona’s first voucher bill did in 2011 when the cost was only $1 million. But over the past dozen years the Arizona voucher program steadily expanded thanks to pressure from an army of lobbyists. By 2022, 12,000 students received vouchers at a cost of $189 million.

Meanwhile, Arizona created a voucher tax-credit program in 1998 to provide money to private and religious schools. That program, which is like the one Horman and Den Hartog are proposing, now costs Arizona $272 million per year. Since its adoption, the tax credit has cost Arizona $2.6 billion.

Two years ago, the voucher lobbyists struck gold when Arizona lawmakers passed the nation’s first universal education savings account law, which made taxpayer money available to every student regardless of family income. Now 73,000 students have signed up for a taxpayer-supported voucher subsidy and the state’s legislative budget staff projects that by next school year 100,000 students will apply for the tuition subsidy. (Source: Capitol Media Services, July 1, 2023)

When the Arizona legislature passed the universal voucher law, proponents said it would cost $33.4 million in the first year and $65 million in the second year. Those numbers were a pipedream. The cost of the universal program skyrocketed to $550 million the first year and more than $800 million this school year.

In a memo last spring to the legislative budget office, Christine Accurso, who then ran the Empowerment Scholarship Program, said that by the end of the next school year the program could have 100,000 students and cost $900 million. She said that would amount to one dollar out of every eight now earmarked for public education in Arizona, which already has the third lowest per pupil funding in the country. (Source: Capitol Media Services)

Arizona’s vouchers don’t serve the students they were supposed to help

In signing Arizona’s new universal voucher law, then-Governor Doug Ducey said universal vouchers would benefit students who currently attend public schools and switch to private and religious schools. “Our kids will no longer be locked in underperforming schools,” Ducey proclaimed.

But Ducey’s promise now rings hollow. Research by the Grand Canyon Institute shows that most of the families taking the taxpayer subsidies live in high-income zip codes and mainly in suburban areas. Few of the students live in rural communities or low-income neighborhoods. (Source: Grand Canyon Institute report, November 6, 2022)

In a recent report, Save Our Schools Arizona, a grassroots anti-voucher group, estimates that up to 80 percent of the students receiving the voucher subsidy already attend private and religious schools or are home schooled.

Under the leadership of Arizona’s new superintendent of schools, Tom Horne, the Department of Education quit reporting how many students accepting the voucher subsidy never attended public schools. But earlier last year Horne’s staff acknowledged that three out of every four students who applied for the taxpayer subsidy already attend private or religious schools, or were homeschooled, according to a report by Capitol Media Services.

News that most students receiving the subsidy never attended public school shouldn’t surprise Arizona lawmakers. They were warned during the debate on the bill that most of the subsidies would go to families who had already sent their kids to private and religious schools. That has also been the trend in nearly every state with vouchers.

“We expect that most of the growth in the universal ESA participation will likely occur among private and home school students,” a report by Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee said. “They have already decided to opt out of the public school system and would be likely to receive financial gain from ESA program participation.”

Vouchers help private, religious schools increase revenue

There is also evidence that some Arizona private and religious schools are taking advantage of the taxpayer subsidy to increase their bottom line. An analysis by The Hechinger Report of 55 private schools which posted their tuition rates online showed that all had raised tuition since passage of the universal law. (Source: The Hechinger Report, November 27, 2023)

The Hechinger Report said some of the schools made increases in line with the Phoenix area’s 6% inflation rate, but nearly half of them had increased their tuition by 10% or more. Five schools raised their tuition by 20% – more than three times the local inflation rate. Hechinger concluded such an increase could put tuition out of reach for the moderate- and low-income families Ducey and lawmakers claimed they wanted to help.

For example, Hechinger wrote, the tuition at one Montessori school increased by $4,200 to $15,000. A Christian school raised tuition by 25% for most grades. A Catholic elementary school raised its tuition by $1,800 for non-Catholic students, increasing the total cost to $14,000. Meanwhile, the average state voucher is about $8,000, leaving a sizeable gap between the voucher subsidy and private school tuition.

“That (increasing tuition) risks pricing the students that lawmakers said they intended to serve out of private schools, in some cases limiting those options to wealthier families and those who already attended private institutions,” Hechinger wrote.

Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, said it makes sense that they would raise tuition. “If a family was already able to pay $11,000, what’s stopping the school from increasing tuition by the average (taxpayer subsidy) ESA?” Lewis told Hechinger.

Yet Arizona private and religious schools aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the taxpayer subsidy to raise tuition. In Florida, where the Legislature passed a universal voucher bill in 2023, St. Paul’s Catholic School in St. Petersburg raised its tuition last fall to take advantage of the new voucher law, according to the Tampa Bay Times. (Source: Tampa Bay Times, May 30, 2023)

“We decided that we need to take maximum advantage of this dramatically expanded funding source,” Monsignor Robert Gibbons, St. Paul’s pastor, announced during a YouTube video circulated to families last year. “Otherwise, we would be negligent,” he said.

Gibbons said the school would raise tuition for parish members from $6,000 per student to $10,000. Non-parish members would pay $12,000 per student instead of $7,000. Meanwhile, families who signed up for the taxpayer supported voucher would receive $8,000 from the State of Florida.

In other words, when all the bills are accounted for, St. Paul families would be paying less in tuition, even as tuition increased, and the school would bring in more money thanks to the taxpayers of Florida. Based on the number of students attending the school, the Tampa Bay Times calculated that the school would bring in about $1 million more per year in tuition thanks to the voucher subsidy.

But Gibbons made it clear to parish families that they all needed to sign up for the taxpayer-supported voucher. “If we don’t take full advantage of this funding source, we will be leaving money on the table and it will revert back to the state,” he said in the video. The increased revenue would be used to raise teacher salaries and make capital improvements at the school, he explained.

Meanwhile, Florida’s newly approved universal Empowering Scholarship was estimated to cost between the Florida House’s $209.6 million estimate and the Florida Senate’s $2.2 billion estimate. But the Education Law Center and Florida Policy Institute, which oppose vouchers, estimates that the cost of the universal program could eventually reach $4 billion. (Source: The Washington Post, June 5, 2023)

Of the 122,895 students who had signed up for the universal Florida voucher program, 69% were already enrolled in private or religious schools and only 13% were transfers from the public school system. The rest were first-time kindergarten students, according to a September report from Step-up for Students, which administers the Sunshine State’s voucher program. (Source: NBC6 News, September 15, 2023)

But that isn’t the only cost for Florida’s so-called “school choice” policy. The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which is like what Horman and Den Hartog want to start in Idaho, has risen 62% since it was created in 2001. The program now costs Florida more than $1 billion per year. (Source: The Hechinger Report, April 24, 2023, and the Florida Department of Education, March 2023)

Vouchers help free market schools survive with taxpayer subsidies

In America, private and religious schools have historically operated independently in the free marketplace and without government funding and control. Like other free market enterprises, if these schools served students, they survived. If they didn’t, they would close or were forced to merge with other private or religious schools.

But private and religious schools are not so comfortable depending upon the free market since the first voucher bill passed in Wisconsin 34 years ago. They still don’t want the government to intrude or hold them accountable, but increasingly they are looking toward taxpayer subsidies to survive and thrive.

This can be especially problematic in states like Idaho whose Constitution prohibits the state from supporting religious schools with taxpayers’ money. But voucher advocates have gotten around these constitutional requirements by giving money to private schools, knowing that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if a state gives money to a private school, it must also fund religious schools. (See Article IX, Section 5 of the Idaho Constitution, also see Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue and U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, June 30, 2020. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that the Court was not endorsing vouchers)

In other words, voucher advocates are repealing constitutional safeguards against giving money to religious schools by statute, instead of going to the voters to amend the state constitutions in states like Idaho, Arizona, and others which have a so-called Blaine Amendment.

Religiously affiliated schools take in most of the voucher money

These developments are important because a 2017 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates why the current trend to fund religiously affiliated schools is significant and historic. The Bureau’s study found that religiously affiliated schools receive 85 percent of the billions of dollars spent annually on taxpayer supported vouchers in the U.S. The Bureau also found that 80 percent of all private school students in the U.S. attend religious schools. (Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2017, “Beyond the Classroom: The Impact of School Vouchers on Church Finances)

Moreover, the Bureau found that taxpayer voucher subsidies have a significant positive fiscal impact on these religious schools. “We find that expansion in voucher policy is, unsurprisingly, associated with increases in voucher revenues for parishes with schools. We also find that voucher expansion prevents parish closures and mergers.”

The Bureau’s research showed that taxpayer voucher subsidies helped the overall bottom line for churches as attendance and collections have faced a large decline in the U.S. “The idea that public funding would provide an important, even dominant, source of support to congregations would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But this possibility has quickly become reality. In our data, the typical parish accepting vouchers gets more revenue from government-funded vouchers (nearly a million dollars annually) than from offertory donations,” the Bureau’s study said.

In other words, the billions of dollars spent on taxpayer voucher subsidies across the country in states like Arizona and Florida are mainly helping church schools and their religious organizations survive during this tectonic shift in American society and religion. Research in Wisconsin, the first state to adopt a voucher program, also shows that religious schools receive most of the Badger State’s tuition subsidies.

Reacting to the Hechinger Report that showed many Arizona private and religious schools were raising tuition thanks to the voucher program, Dan Hungerman, an economics professor at the University of Notre Dame, pointed out that Hechinger’s tuition study lacked the rigor of typical academic research. But he admitted that his own research found the same thing the National Bureau of Economic Research found — voucher programs are improving the bottom line of church schools and preventing their closure or merger. (Source: Hechinger)

That is exactly what concerns Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. He told Hechinger that private school tuition was already too high for many families and would continue to be regardless of whether they get a tax subsidy. He argued that pro-voucher campaigns by lobbying groups are really aimed at saving religious schools through voucher subsidies.

“Vouchers are at least partly about bailing out financially distressed church schools,” Cowen told Hechinger. “Once school vouchers come to town, taxpayers become the dominant source of revenue for churches.”

Another example of how voucher advocates are pushing the historic boundary between church and state is an effort by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma to have taxpayers convert it St. Isidore School into a charter school. If that happens, St. Isidore would become the first religious school in America to be funded 100 percent by taxpayers. (Source: Politico, December 29, 2023)

Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general says it is unconstitutional for the state to fund a St. Isidore charter school. But voucher proponents are preparing to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court to see if they can knock down another wall in the separation of church and state. (Source: Politico)

If the voucher lawyers are successful in the Supreme Court, as they were in the 2020 Espinoza case, voucher opponents fear that legislatures across the country will start funding church-sponsored charter schools. Then, at least in education, the historic Jeffersonian view of church and state separation will be virtually non-existent. (Source: Politico)

As voucher costs soar, Arizona faces a financial crisis

Meanwhile back in Arizona where taxpayers are on the hook to pay more than $1 billion in private and religious school subsidies, the state is facing an estimated $407 million deficit, according to Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee. The committee was told in late December to expect that deficit to continue growing over the next six months. (Source: Arizona Mirror, December 29, 2023)

Voucher proponents say, no problem, they will just tap the state’s limited rainy-day fund to make up for the shortfall. But others worry that the expensive universal voucher program, along with the adoption of a flat income tax, is digging the state into a financial hole. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbes warns that the voucher program “is not sustainable.”

Hobbes said the Arizona lawmakers need “to explain why it is forcing this runaway spending on Arizona taxpayers and making working families foot the bill for private school tuitions. We need to bring an end to the wasteful school voucher spending that threatens to decimate our state’s finances.”

Hobbes isn’t alone in her concern. Former Republican Rep. Joel John, who cast the deciding vote to adopt the universal voucher program after voucher lobbyists threatened to defeat him in the GOP primary, now regrets that he voted for the bill. “It was such a bad policy, I was embarrassed I supported it,” John said on X (formerly Twitter). “I’d like to see the legislature roll it back and reconsider the soundness of this policy, for sure.” (X: September 11, 2023)

Hobbes and John’s warning about the skyrocketing cost of vouchers is reminiscent of the warning Wisconsin Republican state Rep. Steve Kestell, the former chair of the state Assembly’s Education Committee, made when his fellow lawmakers considered a statewide voucher bill.

“This is a case where ideology sort of overwhelms good sense and judgment,” Kestrell told the Sheboygan Press. “Where people who should have known better and are good mathematicians aren’t willing to do the math. It’s because they don’t want to show that would be detrimental to their plans. And the math doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.” (Source: Sheboygan Press, September 28, 2014)

Kestrell added, “That (fiscal) problem will be on steroids with the wide-open school choice program cutting across the state. No one has even tried to explain how we’re going to deal with that as a state. No one has tried to explain how we’re going to fund parallel school programs. Because that is where we are heading.”

As Kestrell warned, the Wisconsin voucher program now costs taxpayers $444 million a year. Recent efforts to make the law universal could raise property taxes in Wisconsin by $570 million a year, according to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. (Source: The Cap Times, December 13, 2023, and Wisconsin Examiner, February 17, 2022)

Hobbes and John are right. The problem facing Arizona policymakers and taxpayers is simple math: The state cannot afford to fund three new school systems – private, religious and homeschool. The state already ranks 48^th in the amount it spends on public schools, pays teachers less than almost any state, has among the most overcrowded classrooms in the country, and faces a growing budget deficit.

That’s where Arizona’s story becomes a cautionary tale for Idaho’s lawmakers where the Gem State ranks 51^st in per pupil funding and faces a $1 billion or more backlog in school facility improvements. Meanwhile, the Idaho Supreme Court has already ruled that legislators are not fulfilling their Constitutional mandate to support our public schools. Not to mention that passing the first private school voucher bill will repeal the Idaho Constitution’s prohibition against funding religious schools by statute instead of by a vote of the people, as the Constitution requires.

The voucher lobby is gearing up for the 2024 Idaho Legislature

The effort to win approval for the Horman-Den Hartog voucher tax-credit bill and a voucher ESA bill in the upcoming Legislature is being led by many of the same organizations that led passage of the Arizona and Florida universal voucher and voucher tax-credit laws, including the American Federation for Children (AFC), which has hired pricey lobbyists in Idaho to pursue its school privatization goals.

The AFC and Young Americans for Liberty are by far the biggest lobby spenders in Idaho, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. AFC reported spending the most last year, $81,313, and Young Americans for Liberty the second most, $59,279, of any lobbying organization. Another pro-voucher group, the Citizens Alliance of Idaho, is the fourth biggest spender at $36,313.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation, which is the loudest voucher advocate in the state, claims it didn’t spend a dime lobbying last year, even though its lobbyists are a constant fixture at the Statehouse. The IFF also doesn’t disclose who funds its organization. But it is one of two Idaho “affiliates” of the State Policy Network, a dark money fund that is bankrolling pro-voucher advocacy groups across the country.

The pro-voucher lobby’s spending far exceeds Idaho’s traditional lobbying groups such as the Idaho Farm Bureau ($18,712); the Idaho Realtors ($14,448); and the Idaho AFL-CIO ($14,037). For the record Idaho Business for Education spent about $14,000, including on the organization’s annual Legislative Academy, which is designed to educate legislators, education leaders, concerned citizens, and the media on pressing education issues.

The stakes are high

As you can imagine from what has happened in Arizona and Florida, the stakes are high in the fight over vouchers for Idaho’s public-school students and taxpayers. The years of having large budget surpluses in Idaho are over and there will be a lot of competition for funding in the upcoming session.

Any money that is diverted from the state coffers to pay for vouchers or voucher tax credits, will be money that cannot go to help students get the education they need for a good career through Governor Little’s Idaho Launch program. And every taxpayer dollar that goes to vouchers, would be a dollar that can’t go to fix Idaho’s decrepit school buildings.

Like in Arizona, it is simple math – Idaho can’t afford to financially support two new school systems – one private, the other religious. Especially when it can’t adequately fund the public schools that more than 80 percent of our children attend.

The voucher lobby will put incredible pressure on our lawmakers to pass a voucher-scholarship or a voucher tax credit this year. They will threaten that they will defeat them in the May primary, just as they did Rep. Joel John in Arizona. But lawmakers should not be fooled – even if they vote for a voucher bill they will be opposed in the primary. That’s exactly what happened to John when he cast the deciding vote for the universal bill.

No doubt there will also be pressure on Gov. Little to support one of the voucher bills in return for the Legislature supporting his Idaho Launch program or his plan to fix Idaho’s dilapidated schools. That has happened to other governors in the country who have been held hostage by voucher advocates.

But the governor should not yield to these threats. We can always fight for Idaho Launch or school restoration, but once we approve the first voucher bill, we will fall into the fiscal abyss other states have. Idaho taxpayers will have to live with the cost of those vouchers for decades to come.

Idaho’s historically conservative lawmakers should not bend to the voucher lobby’s pressure. They still have time to avoid the fiscal nightmare that states like Arizona face. They still have time to stick up for their public-school students, their communities, and for the taxpayers of Idaho. They still have time to heed the cautionary tale from Arizona.

In short, they have time to decide that vouchers are not good for Idaho.

Two school districts where educators are knocking it out of the park are more than 400 miles apart but aligned in the way they are intelligently teaching kindergarten students how to read.

A new case study by the State Board of Education shows that Central Canyon Elementary in the Vallivue School District, which has 54 percent low-income students, and Greensferry Elementary in the Post Falls School District, where one out of every four students are low income, have devised effective strategies in transitioning from part-day to full-day kindergarten. Those strategies are resulting in significant reading improvements among students.

Central Canyon started full-day kindergarten in the 2020-2021 school year by piecing together money from various sources. It started using state funding during the 2021-22 school year. In that year, 35 percent of the students entering kindergarten were proficient readers. By the spring semester 84 percent of the students were proficient.

The following fall 41 percent of the students entered kindergarten as proficient readers and by spring 86 percent were proficient.

Greensferry Elementary had comparable results. In the fall of 2021, 27 percent of the students entered kindergarten proficient and by spring 80 percent were proficient. In the fall of 2023, 43 percent of the kindergarteners were proficient and by the spring 84 percent were.

Keep in mind that even more students might have entered kindergarten as proficient readers if the state provided any financial support to get 4-year-olds ready to learn when they entered school.

So, what’s the secret of these schools’ success?

First, and, most importantly they are being intentional about the way they implemented their full-day kindergarten programs. They didn’t just add “fun activities” with their additional instructional time. Every minute of the day is planned and is used to achieve success. They are also ensuring that every teacher is applying the science of reading to their instruction.

Second, they use data to guide instruction. They constantly look at how each student is progressing and decide how to improve their proficiency. Staff share data with each other, the district and with parents. Data transparency is part of their culture.

They are masters at time management. They changed their school schedule to ensure time to help students who need extra instruction. At Greensferry Elementary they use the bulk of the mornings focused on “academic rigor” and integrate other learning time for music, library, and physical education later in the day.

“Every minute is intentionally used,” according to Greensferry Principal Kathy Baker.

Collaboration and learning are other keys. Besides data sharing, teachers meet in groups and discuss ideas about how to improve each student’s proficiency. And learning doesn’t just stop at the end of the school day. At Greensferry they have an “all hands-on deck” philosophy which extends to parents, volunteers, and the wider community.

Principal Baker attributes her school’s success to “systems thinking,” something she learned in graduate studies at the University of Idaho. Early in her career as a teacher, Baker said she didn’t have any of the data and “science of reading” pedagogy that is now available to her teachers.

Central Canyon and Greensferry have been singled out by the State Board and Department of Education for their success, but they are not public-school unicorns when it comes to improving student achievement. There are other exemplary “best practices” across Idaho which the State Board and State Department want to highlight.

So, the next time you hear someone complain about “failing schools,” remind them that Idaho’s educators labor every day to set students up for success. And they achieve considerably more success than their critics give them credit for.

Billboards have surfaced like weeds in Canyon County attacking Rep. Julie Yamamoto, chair of the House Education Committee, and in Moscow attacking Rep. Lori McCann, vice chair of the House Education Committee and also a board member of Idaho Business for Education.

The Moscow billboard accuses Rep. McCann of “failing to support our children.” In large letters against a pinkish background, it asks, “WILL YOU HELP?” Then it urges someone to “apply now to be a candidate for District 6.”

The billboard attacking Rep. Yamamoto is a carbon copy of the one attacking McCann and accuses the life-long educator of not supporting children and urges someone to run against her in District 11.

Both billboards send a clear message that would-be candidates would have support if they decided to run against Yamamoto and McCann.

So, why would these two legislators who voted for every bill that strengthens public education and supports Idaho’s 300,000 public school students be attacked for supposedly not supporting young people? Because Yamamoto and McCann had the temerity to oppose efforts to use taxpayer dollars to support private and religious schools at the expense of our public schools.

These billboards are sponsored by a pro-voucher group called Citizens Alliance of Idaho. The Alliance is one of nearly 14 groups, many from out of state, urging lawmakers to pass a voucher-like program to support private and religious schools.

The Citizens Alliance of Idaho spent $354,000 to elect voucher-friendly legislators in Idaho last year. Of that, $150,000 came from the Ohio-based Citizens Alliance Super PAC. Additionally, Doyle Beck and Bryan Smith who serve on the board of the Idaho Freedom Foundation tossed in another $30,000 each to finance the Alliance.

Meanwhile, another out-of-state privatization group, the American Federation for Children, circulated a flyer in northern Idaho this spring thanking Sen. Scott Herndon “for standing with Idaho’s students and parents.”

The flyer, which had a return address for a suite in Dallas, Texas, claimed that “Senator Scott Herndon is putting Idaho’s Students First!”

The truth is Herndon didn’t vote for any bill that would help Idaho’s students. He voted no on increased funding for our public schools. No on increased funding for career technical education. No on $5 million to help students with dyslexia. No on funding for community colleges. No on funding for higher education. No on grants for students to attend community college or technical schools. No on scholarships for students to attend college.

Herndon even voted against a special appropriation to provide extra law enforcement security at the University of Idaho after four students were murdered in November.

The only education bills Herndon supported were those that would send taxpayer dollars to support students who attend private and religious schools.

So much for putting students first!

It is no surprise that the American Federation for Children would distort Herndon’s record. During the 2022 Republican primary election in Idaho, AFC spent $200,000 to elect pro-privatization legislators like Herndon and another $74,000 in the general election.

And the spending by these pro-voucher groups did not stop after the election. Of the top 10 spendings organizations lobbying the 2023 Legislature, three were pro-voucher groups, including the American Federation of Children which spent $81,000, more than any other special interest group.

The other two were the Citizens Alliance of Idaho, which spent $36,000, and Young Americans for Liberty, which spent $59,000. By comparison, traditional Idaho interest groups, the Idaho Farm Bureau and Idaho Realtors spent a mere $18,711 and $15,442 respectively.

Additionally, three of the top 10 individual spenders were pro-voucher lobbyists: Bill Phillips, American Federation for Children, $75,024; Lucious O’Dell, Young Americans for Liberty, $59,278; Matt Edwards, Citizens Alliance of Idaho, $36,312, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

More and more interest groups like the American Federation for Children are trying to convince Idahoans what is truthful is false and what is false is truthful. That legislators like Scott Herndon are champions of education when they are not and pro-education legislators like Julie Yamamoto and Lori McCann don’t support students when they do.

In other words, what is happening to politics in Idaho is even bigger than just the issue of vouchers versus the future of public education. It is also about truth versus disinformation. It is about integrity versus deception.

Unfortunately, many Idahoans are falling for the disinformation and deception leveled against our very best lawmakers. Last year their deceptive campaigns cost many good lawmakers their seats. Now they want to defeat good people like Yamamoto and McCann with the same trickery.

If they succeed, the real losers will be the public-school students in Idaho.

The success these pro-voucher, well-funded, misinformation mongers have enjoyed only confirms what Mark Twain once observed: “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”

For the sake of Idaho’s future, we can only hope that “truth” starts lacing up its boots fast and sends these carpetbaggers back to Dallas and Ohio or wherever they came from.

McCarthy accused the Army of having weak security at one of its top-secret facilities. In response, the Army hired a well-known lawyer, Joseph Welch, to defend the country’s oldest service branch against the allegations. During a public hearing at which Welch testified, McCarthy accused one of Welch’s junior attorneys of having ties to the Communist Party with no evidence to back up his charge.

Welch responded with words that have gone down in history as the ultimate put down for bullies like McCarthy. “Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”

McCarthy tried to fight back, but Welch stopped him. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no decency?”

Have you no decency?

With those four immortal words McCarthy’s popularity in the country disappeared overnight, he was censured by his fellow senators, rebuffed by the media that helped create him, and died three years later in disgrace. His brand of character assassination has now become known as McCarthyism.

Now, in the beautiful North Idaho community of Coeur d’Alene, Welch’s indictment “have you no decency” applies to Brent Regan, the chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. After years of smearing his political opponents, Regan hit a new low in the recent local non-partisan library board election.

Two incumbents, Judy Meyer, and Regina McCrea were running for re-election. I don’t know McCrea, but I have worked with Judy Meyer for a decade as chair of Idaho Business for Education’s Panhandle region.

Judy is an institution and community treasure in Coeur d’Alene. She has served on the North Idaho College board of trustees, served as president of the State Board of Education, still serves on the board of Idaho Public Television, has donated millions of dollars to make her community a better place to live, and has served on the library board for 30 years.

At the age of 81, when most people retire from public service, Judy ran for re-election to the library board because she is concerned about those who want to ban books in the library. She wanted to prevent Regan and his book-banning minions from taking over the library board just as they took over the North Idaho College board and drove it to the brink of oblivion.

On Tuesday, Judy lost her race for re-election to the board after Regan’s Kootenai County GOP committee sent out a letter accusing Judy and McCrea of allowing “graphic books with text and pictures describing every imaginable sex act to be purchased and displayed to children.”

The letter went on to say, “These books are so explicit that if you were to give them to a child, you would be committing a crime.”

Regan’s group also paid for a video in which they accused the library board of failing to protect children from “harmful media and reading material.”

In the video, a young girl comes home from school and tells her mother, who is washing dishes, that at the library a woman read a book to the children. The girl tells her mother that the book had “moms and dads and there were kids” and they were “doing things like kissing each other and some of ‘em didn’t have any clothes on.”

The video goes on to show the shocked mother turning to her daughter.

“Mommy,” the child asks. “What’s anal sex?”

At that, the shocked mother drops a plate, and it shatters on the floor.

The video ends by urging people to vote for the candidates running against Judy and McCrea.

Let’s be clear, Judy Meyer is no groomer. Judy Meyer would never allow children to be exposed to sexually explicit books. She is a mother and a grandmother and a pillar of decency and virtue. She has dedicated her life to serving her community. She and her husband of more than 57 years were just honored in the Spokane business newspaper as “icons” of the Coeur d’Alene community.

This time Regan and his minions jumped the shark. To paraphrase Joseph Welch’s immortal words, his cruelty and recklessness hit a new low. He has demonstrated in a most public way that he, indeed, has no decency.

Coeur d’Alene is one of the most beautiful towns in the United States, nestled along the banks of Lake Coeur d’Alene. It is populated by many good people who love their community. It has known good times and bad times like when it had to fight and defeat a group of neo-Nazis that plagued the area. Thousands of outsiders have flocked to the community because of its lakeside beauty and thriving economy.

But in the last few years a heavy darkness has descended over Coeur d’Alene, thanks largely to people like Brent Regan. They have infected the community with a poison that has spread like wildfire. Coeur d’Alene is now a place where truth, love, respect, civility, and goodwill go to die.

Coeur d’Alene is at risk of losing its wonderful community college, the oldest in Idaho, because Brent Regan backed far-right candidates who took over the board of trustees. It has already lost many good public servants who, like Judy Meyer, were smeared. Now it is about to lose its community library to book censorship. One has the haunting feeling that the recent library election is proof positive that the community is close to losing its soul.

One wonders when a majority of people in that blessed lakeside community will collectively tell Brent Regan and his minions that enough is enough. One wonders when they will tell Brent Regan and his minions that their cruelty knows no bounds. One wonders when they will tell Brent Regan in no uncertain terms that he has no decency. That his brand of character assassination has no place in their community.

The scary truth is, if they can character assassinate a community icon and an 81-year-old grandmother like Judy Meyer, no one’s reputation is safe. They can tarnish anyone, no matter how innocent they are.

When the good citizens of Coeur d’Alene finally decide to send Brent Regan and his acolytes packing, then, and only then, can they start rebuilding their town into the beautiful, welcoming, and loving community that once was the jewel of North Idaho.

Why do I say this? Because the issue at hand, Senate Bill 1161, will eventually lead to a universal education savings account that will cost Idaho taxpayers millions of dollars, undermine funding for public schools, and upon adoption repeal by statute rather than by constitutional amendment a prohibition against taxpayer money going to religious schools.

This is not an idle opinion about where we are headed. I have the evidence to it up.

Over the past year I have conducted extensive research on the history of voucher and education savings account laws in other states that have had these programs for years.

By looking at what happened in these states – Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Arizona – I could see what would happen eventually in Idaho if the Legislature passed a bill to provide taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools.

My research turned up one important red flag: In every state the privatization programs started small and were continually expanded until thousands of students received taxpayer subsidies and the cost to taxpayers soared into the hundreds of millions.

This finding is now very relevant to the current debate in Idaho over whether we should create education savings accounts.

Rep. Wendy Horman and Sen. Lori Den Hartog, longtime advocates of using taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools, have a new bill that is being considered in the Senate that will start a so-called “pilot program” just as these programs have started in other states. And, just as in these other states, it is destined to be expanded over the years.

Horman and Den Hartog would provide $6,000 per student, giving priority to low-income students. They would cap the program at 2,000 students. It would cost $30 million the first year and $12 million a year starting in 2025 for five years.

Horman and Den Hartog are grafting this language onto the popular Empowering Families program even though they agreed last year not to use the program as a vehicle to provide taxpayer dollars to private schools.

Still, their bill appears harmless enough. It limits the cost to 2,000 students. The cost is relatively low at $12 million per year. It is appealing because it gives priority to low-income students. Who could argue with that?

But to someone who has investigated what has happened in other privatization states the game plan looks familiar. And dangerous if one believes in public education and doesn’t want millions of dollars siphoned off to provide taxpayer subsidies for families that already send their students to private and religious schools.

For example, Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to pass a law that provided state funds to private and religious schools. The program started out as a “pilot” to serve a few thousand low-income students in Milwaukee. Eventually the program expanded to Racine and then went statewide.

Today the Wisconsin voucher program pays the tuition for 42,649 students to attend private and religious schools at a cost to taxpayers of $457.4 million a year.  As in the other states, most of the students who receive vouchers have never attended public schools and are not low income. And most of the money goes to run religious schools.

When the Wisconsin Legislature voted to take the program statewide, Republican Rep. Steve Kestell, who chaired the Assembly’s Education Committee for years, warned, that expanding the state’s voucher program was not sound public policy – nor sound fiscal policy.

“This is a case where ideology sort of overwhelms good sense and judgment,” Kestell told the Sheboygan Press. “Where people who should have known better and are good mathematicians aren’t willing to do the math. It’s because they don’t want to show that would be detrimental to their plans. And the math doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.”

Republican Rep. Marc Duff, who voted for the first voucher bill, told the Wisconsin School News there was a “feeling” among lawmakers that the program would only apply to Milwaukee, and they didn’t have to worry about the effect on their schools.

But after the program was launched in Racine and it cost the school district money and schools had to close, Duff regretted his vote for the original voucher bill. “Well, we’re all in it now,” he said with resignation.

In Ohio, the voucher program started off providing 3,000 low-income students in Cleveland tuition to private schools at a cost of $5 million. Sound familiar? By last year, the Ohio voucher program had soared to serving 68,000 students at a cost to taxpayers of $628 million.

“I double-dog dare you to find another area in the Ohio budget that has experienced such a skyrocketing increase,” Dan Heintz, a history teacher at Chardon Local Schools near Cleveland., told The Columbus Dispatch.

In Arizona, the education savings account program only served 12,000 students until last year. But last winter the Arizona Legislature passed a bill that made the state’s ESA program universal, with no income limit on how much families can earn to receive taxpayer subsidies.

The universal law now makes 1.1 million public school students, 66,000 private and religious school students, and 38,000 home school students eligible for about $7,000 per year, per student.

If all the private and religious school students received $7,000 – and why wouldn’t a family apply for free money – the cost to Arizona taxpayers would be an additional $462 million per year. And if all the home school students participated, the cost would be $266 million of new cost for taxpayers.

And that $728 million in new cost to taxpayers doesn’t even count students who might move from public to private schools, although again most of the students applying for the universal ESA so far have never attended public schools.

In Indiana, the voucher program also started small, but has grown to a cost of $224 million. But even that isn’t enough money to satisfy voucher advocates.

This winter a proposal is before the Indiana House that would more than double the voucher program by raising the family income eligibility income to 400 percent, meaning a family earning $220,000 a year could qualify. That expansion would increase the cost of the voucher program to $724 million in fiscal year 2024 and to nearly $1 billion in fiscal year 2025.

In Idaho, the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy estimates that a universal ESA program in our state could eventually cost $358 million. From my research, I believe that estimate is reasonable, and maybe even conservative. The only question is how long it will take to reach that number.

Here’s the bottom line: A limited “pilot” program like Horman and Den Hartog are proposing is not harmless and it won’t be limited, no matter what the sponsors say. Even privatization advocates will tell you behind closed doors – I should know, I have heard them – that the best way to get vouchers or ESAs passed is to begin with a limited number of “low-income students” or “special needs students” and then expand it from there.

But history shows in state after state that advocates of privatizing education never stop until they serve all students, especially those who have never attended public schools. And in state after state the cost to taxpayers climbs steadily to several hundred million dollars at the expense of the public schools.

The Idaho Senate overwhelmingly killed a universal ESA bill a few weeks ago. The Horman-Den Hartog bill is a Trojan Horse and the senators who opposed the first bill should know that.

When the senators cast their vote, they will not be voting on a “pilot” ESA. They will be opening the door to a universal ESA that will eventually cost their constituents millions of dollars, weaken our public schools, and violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Idaho Constitution.

Let’s hope they don’t live to regret their vote like the legislators in other states that were fooled by the privatization advocates.

Born on a farm in Canyon County near where he spent his life growing hops, onions and other crops, Idaho’s 29^th governor was a man who lived close to the soil of Idaho and equally close to the people who he served his entire adult life.

Like the people of Idaho, Governor Batt was a fiscal conservative who appreciated a government with a light touch in people’s lives. But he was also a humanitarian who fought for the underdog, the vulnerable and those who didn’t have a fair shot in life.

Long before anyone ever heard of inclusion and equity, Governor Batt believed deeply in the dignity of all people, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or stature in life – something he learned from his mother. This commitment to human rights was reinforced when he was stationed in Mississippi as a soldier and saw firsthand the evil of racism.

More than any other political leader, Phil Batt stood for human rights. That is one reason why the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights named its soon-to-be constructed education building for him.

As a young man, he dropped out of the Elks Club when a friend who was of Japanese descent was rejected because of his race. He never went back.

As a legislator, Batt sponsored creation of the Idaho Human Rights Commission at a time when supporting civil rights wasn’t popular. He also voted for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment for women and later voted against the move to repeal the ratification.

Long before it was required, Governor Batt provided toilets for his workers who labored in the fields during the hot Idaho summers. And as a state legislator he sponsored the legislation to require farmers to provide these facilities.

As governor, Governor Batt fought to require farmers to provide workers compensation to farmworkers who were injured on the job, even though he knew he would lose many friends in the process.

After he was elected governor the leaders of Idaho’s Native American tribes asked him which member of his staff would be assigned to work with them. He replied that he was personally going to be their contact in his government, and he kept his promise to meet with them regularly.

Governor Batt was a master of one of the most basic arts of politics, the ability to work with people who disagreed with him or belonged to the opposite political party. One of the people who influenced his budding political career most was Senator Art “Pops” Murphy, a Democrat from Shoshone County who schooled Idaho’s future governor on the ways of the Senate.

Governor Batt’s close relationship with Idaho’s Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus is legendary. To the end of Andrus’ life and long into Governor Batt’s, the two former governors worked to remove radioactive waste from the eastern Idaho desert and prevent more waste from entering their dear state.

Governor Batt was also a man of great humility. Once his staffer Lindy High asked him why he frequently ate at the same restaurant near the capitol. He said the food and service was good and he almost always got an open table. High thought to herself, “You’re the governor. You could probably get an open table anywhere.”

Governor Batt wasn’t perfect, mind you, and he was the first to admit it. He had a trigger quick temper, but he was also quick to apologize to the receiving party and he was also the rare politician who admitted when he was wrong.

He was a man of many talents, including a master of the English language. He used words as a newspaper columnist sparingly, but with the skill of a surgeon to get to the art of a matter. His poetic tribute to the 91 miners who lost their lives in 1972 at the Sunshine Mine in Kellogg are among the most beautiful words ever written by an Idahoan. It began:

“Our tongues have not tasted the bitter dust

The roar of the drills has never reached our ears.

Unfelt to us is the darkness of the shafts.

Yet we are Idahoans

    And we were miners then.”

Governor Batt is the last of a generation of leaders who shaped the modern Idaho. Now he is gone along with giants of both parties like Cecil Andrus, James McClure, Frank Church and others who saw public service as a privilege and a responsibility, not as a way to advance their own self-interest or narrow ideology.

In one of the last interviews with Governor Batt, I asked him which of the nick names fit him best: the Little Giant, a reference to his short physical frame, yet large political stature; Machine Gun for how he rattled off words quickly and sparingly; or Squeaky, because of his high-pitched voice. He said the best word to describe him was “Lucky.”

The truth is that we Idahoans are the lucky ones. We are lucky to have had a man of integrity living amongst us like Governor Batt. We are lucky that he dedicated his life to serving the state and  people he loved.

On Idaho Day, we lost more than a former governor. We lost the singular person who represented the best of us. You might say we lost the conscience of our state.

Rod Gramer was a longtime Idaho journalist who covered Phil Batt when he was in the Legislature and as governor. He is the author and editor of “Lucky: The Wit and Wisdom of Governor Phil Batt.” 

It’s a decision that determines whether lawmakers remain faithful to the Idaho Constitution which states “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.”

It’s a decision that determines if Article IX, Section 5 of the Constitution is repealed by statute instead of by a vote of the people as the Constitution requires.

It’s a decision that could lead to property tax increases as the cost of education soars.

It’s a decision that could tear at the social and economic fabric of Idaho’s rural communities.

It’s a decision that will decide whether it is the state’s role to use taxpayers’ money to directly subsidize enterprises that are privately owned and operated.

The decision facing lawmakers is whether to use taxpayers’ dollars to finance private and religious schools.

When I speak of privatization, I refer to various ways taxpayers’ money is siphoned off to private and religious schools, including voucher scholarships, education savings accounts (ESA) and tax-credit programs. Each drains money from public schools and creates three new school systems for taxpayers to fund – private, religious, and potentially home schools.

Applying Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the end in mind” maxim, I have researched what has happened to public education, taxes, and student achievement in long-time privatization states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Arizona. Looking at these states is the best way to see what privatization will do to Idaho.

My conclusion: vouchers will take money away from public schools, increase the cost of education to taxpayers, lead to property tax increases, and not fulfill the promise of improving academic achievement.

The negative impact on public education and taxpayers will be especially acute for rural communities which are already struggling with inequities in funding, deteriorating school buildings and teacher shortages. They also don’t stand to benefit from privatization – there are few private schools in rural Idaho.

In other states, rural citizens are forced to raise their property taxes so people in cities can send their kids to private and religious schools. Are Idaho’s rural citizens ready to raise their property taxes? Not really. This year’s BSU Idaho Policy Institute study shows 56 percent of Idahoans already think their property taxes are too high.

I have written a series of essays (go to idahobe.org) looking at the impact of vouchers in these states. One essay looks at what’s happened in Wisconsin, the first state to create vouchers 33 years ago. Another studies privatization in Indiana, Ohio, and Arizona, which last year became the first state to pass a universal ESA law with no limit on family income eligibility.

I connect the dots between the out-of-state billionaires and their front groups that are advocating for vouchers in Idaho. I cite studies, including from pro-voucher think tanks, showing students who move from public to private schools don’t do better academically and often worse. There is virtually no accountability and transparency when taxpayer dollars flow to private and religious schools, even according to one pro-voucher think tank report.

One argument Idahoans hear is that vouchers are about “parental choice,” and money should “follow the student.” But vouchers are not about parental choice – they are about which students private and religious schools choose. That’s the bottom-line parents should know.

Go to idahobe.org and read my essays, do your own research and you decide whether privatization is good for Idaho. My answer to that question is an emphatic no.

But there is another reason this week to think of President Daly and that is her passion for education, especially here in Idaho. Along with Idaho Business for Education, President Daly and her team are working to increase the go-on rate in our state. 

More on that later, but first it’s important to understand President Daly’s personal story, which also helps explain her passion for education.

In a commencement speech at Syracuse University three years ago, Mary shared her personal journey from a high school drop out to president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve. 

Mary was 15 years old, her family was in chaos, and she moved out of the house to stay with friends. A school counselor saw something in Mary and asked a friend of hers, a successful woman named Betsy, to meet with Mary. Their first meeting was in a McDonald’s parking lot.

“Betsy had the fanciest car I had ever seen,” Mary told the Syracuse graduates. “It had a tan leather interior, and when the sun shined in, it felt warm and safe. It was a refuge.”

Mary expected Betsy to give her all the answers to fix her life. Instead, Betsy said, “Mary, you have to bloom where you’re planted.”

Mary protested. “I said it wasn’t fair. I didn’t know how to manage my life. I was only 15. It all seemed too much. I blamed others, I blamed myself. For a moment I even blamed her. I felt lost.”

But Betsy said it again, this time more gently. “Mary, you have to bloom where you’re planted.”

After that first meeting, Betsy took Mary under her wing and encouraged her to get a GED. Then she encouraged Mary to attend college and offered to pay the first semester tuition. “Betsy is a nudger,” Mary recalled. 

“I never imagined college – I’d barely heard of it,” Mary confessed. “But I wanted to be like Betsy. And I certainly didn’t want to let her down. So, I went.”

But like a lot of young people, especially those who come from challenging backgrounds, Mary had a fear of failure, fear that she wasn’t good enough, and fear that she didn’t belong in college. “So, I worked day and night, and took as many classes as allowed, all in an attempt to catch up and boost my confidence. I told myself I could fake it until I made it.”

And make it Mary did. She received her bachelor’s degree in economics and philosophy and eventually ended up at Syracuse where she received her Ph.D. in microeconomics and social policy. From there she got her first job at the San Francisco Federal Reserve, rose through the ranks and in 2018 was named president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve.

“Now when people hear these details, they often conclude that I must be amazingly self-assured,” Mary told the graduates. “But the truth is, I’ve spent years struggling with my confidence. Wondering when, not if, I would be found out.”

Mary’s aha moment came when she realized other people weren’t judging her because of her past – she was her own saboteur. Instead of seeing her past as a negative, Mary decided to embrace it.

“We’re often taught to admire people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and forge a path completely on their own,” Mary said. “It can make it hard to be vulnerable and ask someone for help. But I didn’t have that luxury of standing alone when I met Betsy at 15. It taught me that we all need Betsys – in fact, we need a lot of them throughout our lives.”

Mary discovered that her experiences “absolutely” defined her, but in a way she had never seen before. Her life experiences “make me focus on others, be tolerant of fresh starts, celebrate wins, and look for ways to contribute.”

So, what does Mary’s story have to do with Idaho and its students? Plenty.

Idaho is full of Mary Dalys, young people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, students who lack confidence in themselves, and have no idea what career opportunities are out there or how to obtain the education and training to get one. But research shows that if they have a caring adult, especially a parent, they can get the confidence to go on and achieve personal and professional success.

Another reason Mary’s story is relevant is because she has made it a personal mission to help those Mary Dalys in Idaho become successful adults. In 2018, soon after she was named the San Francisco Fed President, Mary was in Idaho and met with the Idaho Business for Education Board of Directors.

At that meeting she listened to us talk about the challenges Idaho’s students face. We explained how Idaho has one of the lowest go-on rates past high school in the country. We explained that parents are the most influential people on the young people’s decision to go on or not. And, in Idaho, many parents even discourage their students from going on.

After meeting with IBE, Mary went back to San Francisco and asked her team how they could help more Idaho youth go on and achieve success in school, work, and life. They decided that if parents are the number one influencer on whether their children go on, that we should focus on educating the parents about the importance of postsecondary in helping their children obtain a good career.

Mary and her team brought the idea back to IBE and together we produced what is now known as the Within Reach program. The big idea behind Within Reach is that IBE and members of Mary’s team, along with local business leaders and educators, will conduct “lunch and learns” with employees – otherwise known as parents, grandparents, and guardians. We will explain how important it is for parents to become full partners in their young people’s education and how they can encourage their students to go on and get credentials for a good career.

We were supposed to launch Within Reach two years ago in the Idaho Falls School District, but it was delayed multiple times because of the COVID pandemic. Now we are launching Within Reach in Idaho Falls this week thanks to IBE members Idaho Steel, Hartwell Insurance, Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, and one non-member, the City of Idaho Falls. 

IBE and the Fed plan to launch the second pilot Within Reach program in southwest Idaho next winter. If we can successfully raise the go-on rate in these pilot programs, the plan is to take Within Reach to other school districts in Idaho. 

Mary Daly, that insecure and lost 15-year-old living with friends and having no idea how to improve her life, is now a “Betsy.” She is paying it forward, creating a virtuous cycle that began in that McDonald’s parking lot 40 years ago and continues this week helping thousands of young Idahoans obtain their own personal dream. 

Rod Gramer is president of Idaho Business for Education. Mary Daly will be speaking at the Special Events Center in the Boise State Student Union Building at 2:35 p.m. Thursday. You can register at this address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeydvtcmgWNPA2UJ8KusxZx_-Fjt6Z0cxlcvJAiSKEY3Jl1Ww/viewform

On August 30, twelve school districts will be seeking voter approval for $261.4 million for a variety of education investments. Of that, $144 million would go to build or renovate school buildings, which will require a two-thirds majority for approval. Another $117 million would go to cover operating expenses at several districts, which requires a simple majority for approval.

Another important vote is on September 6, the day after Labor Day, in the Boise School District where five trustee seats will be up for grabs. The winners of that election will determine the future direction of the state’s second largest school district for years to come.

In surveys, people say that the government they trust most is the one closest to them. They also repeatedly tell pollsters that their number one concern is education. Unfortunately, their voting behavior doesn’t always reflect the importance they put on who runs their schools or how they are operated.

For example, in 2020, only 6.1 percent of the eligible patrons in the Boise School District voted in the trustee election. And the last time a trustee election was held the day after Labor Day only 3.7 percent of patrons voted. That means fewer than one in ten voters are deciding the direction of one of the best school districts in the State of Idaho.

Nothing is more important to the perpetuation of our democracy than public education. Idaho’s founding fathers thought it was so important they wrote it into our state’s Constitution. Article IX, Section 1 reads, “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.”

As an organization that represents more than 250 business leaders across our state, Idaho Business for Education believes that public education is essential for Idaho’s economic prosperity and quality of life. Our economy cannot flourish if we do not have skilled talent and the only way to develop that talent is through education.

If you live in the Coeur d’Alene, Boundary County, Middleton, Vallivue, Blaine County, Jerome, Madison, Plummer-Worley, Ririe, Salmon River, Buhl, or Three Creek school districts, go to the district website and find out more about how to vote on August 30.

If you live in the Boise School District, go to boiseschools.org to find out how to vote early, get an absentee ballot or how to vote in person on September 6. If you are afraid you will forget to vote after the Labor Day weekend, think about voting early or getting an absentee ballot.

All elections are important, even those that fall in the last days of summer. As Idaho employers we urge you to vote in these important elections. The future of our children, our economy and our quality of life depends on it.