SCHOOL CHOICE PLAN: No accountability for millions of dollars

The annual attack on public education is in full swing within the Idaho Legislature, and at least 10 of our local legislators support it. They frame it as a way for parents to have control of their child’s education. In reality, it is a way to siphon off money from public schools and allow some families to spend it any way they choose. If this year’s proposed legislation is anything closely resembling what was proposed last year, there will be no measures of accountability for those families who accept the funds.

Given that those who implement laws rarely have to deal with the day-to-day repercussions of those actions, the legislators probably haven’t considered how many additional hours of work they would be creating for employees within the state department of education and local schools in order to implement this proposed revenue source.

It has been reported that this plan would cost approximately $20M. Given that there are more than 11,000 students enrolled in private schools in Idaho, and why would those families not want about $6,000 per student to offset the money they are already spending, that cost balloons to more than $65M. Add in the cost of the current homeschool population, and there is no way to estimate the actual cost of this scheme.

The idea of allowing individuals to direct the state’s resources from public services to private use is ludicrous. It is just a continuation of the attacks on public schools.

RICK JONES

Rathdrum