Idaho’s school voucher scheme won in court. It’s still bad policy | Opinion

The Idaho Supreme Court ruled that the state’s tax credit scheme to funnel tax dollars to private schools doesn’t violate the Idaho Constitution.

The opponents’ argument against it didn’t quite pass muster, and the Supreme Court made a reasonable ruling that the Idaho Constitution doesn’t restrict the state from funding a second education system.

But even though it may not violate the constitution, it’s still bad policy.

Even the justices made sure to point out that they weren’t saying the tax credits are wise.

“Reasonable minds may differ over the wisdom or effectiveness of (the tax credit) as a matter of policy,” Chief Justice Richard Bevan wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion.

“Importantly, we have not been asked to weigh in on the wisdom of these new policies, nor could we do so even if we were inclined,” Justice Gregory Moeller wrote in his concurring opinion, which seemed to be written specifically for the purpose of distancing the court from the appearance of condoning the policy. “Today, we have only determined that nothing in the Idaho Constitution prohibits the legislature — provided it fulfills its constitutional duty to public education — from using tax credits to assist parents who are financing their children’s education outside of that system.”

To that point, we believe a reasonable argument could have been made that the Legislature has, indeed, failed to fulfill its constitutional duty to public education, specifically on the “thorough” portion of the mandate.

Consider the $2 billion shortfall in school facilities or the $50 million shortfall (coincidentally, the same amount going out the door for private education) for special education. Note, too, that the students who need special education can be rejected by private schools. Public schools don’t have that option.

School choice supporters like to argue that we need a voucher scheme like this to allow students to “escape” the failing public school system.

First, we reject the notion that our public schools are failing. Second, if a public school is not meeting the needs of some students, legislators have within their power to fix it.

Republican legislators, in their faulty logic, determined that rather than take action to improve that system and whatever flaws it might have, they decided to pay for the private education of families who reject the free public school system that taxpayers have provided.

School choice supporters argue that parents are the most qualified to decide what education is best for their children. We agree, but if families are rejecting the public school system because there’s no praying or Bible classes in their free public school, we fail to see why taxpayers should fund their decision to go elsewhere.

The other interesting element of the Supreme Court’s ruling was the idea that the plaintiffs were not able to show damage.

Since the program just started, and families have only just begun to apply for the tax credits, it’s hard to show damages quite yet. But give it a minute.

And one could make a reasonable argument that had the Legislature not passed House Bill 93, making available $50 million for private school vouchers, that $50 million would be available to fund special education programs.

On this point, too, Moeller seemed to give a nod.

“There is no doubt that the public, educators, and policy makers will learn much about the impact of House Bill 93 (Idaho 2025) in the days to come,” he wrote. “As they do, it will remain all our duty to live up to the educational promises the Framers of Idaho’s Constitution made to ‘our children and our children’s children, and [to] generations yet unborn.’”

In the days and weeks and years to come, we will indeed find out the impact of school vouchers.

And it’s not going to be good.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, assistant editor Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.