Education investment a focus this session

For the last six weeks at the Idaho Legislature, I have sat on the Senate Education Committee and have listened to a multitude of presentations related to education in Idaho, K-20, and beyond. Presenters have included the new state superintendent of public instruction, superintendents of public schools, principals from charter schools, university and community college presidents, and representatives from various career technical programs. We have also heard from representatives from interstate exchanges like the one in which Idaho medical students attend programs in Washington and Utah.

I also sit on the Senate’s budget-setting committee for the whole of the state government, so I have been reviewing the financial side of education investment. The Idaho Constitution’s Article IX, section 1 requires the legislature to maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools. The constitution even states that the purpose of education is that the stability of a republican form of government depends mainly on the intelligence of the people. The constitutional purpose of public education for secondary education is not to primarily create students trained for the workforce.

Therefore every decision we make regarding public education should be to maintain our republican form of government. The common school referred to in our constitution was a creation of the 1800s. An early influencer was Horace Mann. “Common” referred specifically to secondary education through the 12th grade. We know then that our mandate is a focus on secondary education. We then examine whether we are producing educated secondary students who can keep the republic.

The first step to intelligence is students’ ability to read and communicate. Every superintendent and the State Board of Education and the Idaho Education Association all admit that the performance of reading proficiency in the 8th grade is only a little above 30% in Idaho. At that level, Idaho is above the performance of 39 other states! Our superintendent of public instruction admitted that very little then changes in proficiency between the 8th grade and 12th grade. State Board of Education president Kurt Liebich recently stated about Idaho student reading proficiency that “approximately two-thirds are not proficient and that is a big concern.”

Our math scores are no different. Eighth-grade math proficiency scores stand at 32% in 2022. So, we have a $3 billion state investment in public education in Idaho with an additional investment of federal dollars and local investment through bonds and levies, and we ask, are we creating a people who are intelligent enough to maintain our republican form of government? Which, I reiterate, is the goal of this whole exercise. We should examine whether we are even producing students who know what an American republican form of government is.

The American republic is a seven-boundary form of government, unique among any ever created. The first boundary is the balance of political power between the states and the federal government. The federal government was given limited and certain enumerated powers. Unfortunately, the national government has far exceeded what those powers were intended to be. Just one clear example is whether we should have received the $26 billion of stimulus payments from the federal government during Covid to be used on federally directed programs found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution.

Then, within both the federal and state governments, called dual federalism, we have three clear boundaries — the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government in which a careful balance of power is maintained, and overreach by one branch can be checked by the other branches. Herein, we have seen exercises of power unchecked. For example, the issuance of executive orders by the executive that exceeded their authority during COVID, or extra-interpretation of laws by the judiciary.

How do we raise the level of the performance and intelligence of our K-12 students so that they cannot only understand the limitations and checks and balances of our republican form of government but that they can actively participate in maintaining these boundaries within the structures of our system of dual federalism?

That will be a major focus of this legislative session. That will also be the driver of policies you will probably see in the news concerning public charter schools, public school funding, and education savings accounts. All of our decisions will be focused on how we improve the results we are getting from our state’s investment in K-12 education. If you have any questions or input, I welcome your emails at sherndon@senate.idaho.gov.

Idaho Sen. Scott Herndon represents Bonner and Boundary counties in District 1. He can be reached at sherndon@senate.idaho.gov.