EDUCATION: Crusade against ignorance

There’s a Reason Why Idaho Ranks 50th in funding for education. You just need to ask yourself what can i do about it! Idaho has a rainy day fund of approximately $1.3 billion, yet they will not fully fund our public education!

But they will probably in the next legislative session hand out vouchers to private schools.

There is a bigger game afoot, though, than the current attack on the Department of Education. As Thomas Jefferson recognized, education is fundamental to democracy, because only educated people can accurately evaluate the governmental policies that will truly benefit them.

In 1786, Jefferson wrote to a colleague about public education: “No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness…. Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against [the evils of “kings, nobles and priests”], and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”

Get ready to bow, wow wow wow!

TOM SANNER 

Lifelong Idaho resident