Competition argument doesn’t hold up in Idaho debate over education savings accounts
Idaho narrowly dodged a bullet that would have directed state tax dollars to private schools.
The House Education Committee on Tuesday voted, 8-7, to kill a bill that would give $5,950 in state tax dollars to families to create “education savings accounts” for Idaho students to use for private education.
The bill, House Bill 669, or euphemistically called the “Hope and Opportunity Scholarship Program,” was sponsored by Reps. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, and Dorothy Moon, R-Stanley.
The logic goes something like this: Idaho spends $5,950 per pupil to educate that student. That money, therefore, “belongs” to that student and therefore should “follow” that student, wherever he or she chooses to spend that money.
This is flawed logic. The money doesn’t belong to the student. It belongs to the taxpayers. In Idaho, our constitution mandates that we spend those tax dollars “to establish a system of free schools.”
“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.”
See, the word “system” is right there in the constitution.
You keep hearing the mantra, “fund students, not systems.” Well, we fund systems in order to educate students. It’s as simple as that.
During committee debate Tuesday, many of the supporters, such as Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Lewiston, argued that public schools should compete with private schools and that competition is good.
But as Rep. John McCrostie, D-Boise, rightly pointed out, we don’t ask firefighters, police officers or ambulance services to compete with the private sector. Yes, some things are the sole purview of the government. You can make the argument that we should completely privatize education. Until you win that debate, though, we have a public education system.
Mendive tried to come back with the suggestion that if we relied solely on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver all of our mail, we’d be in big trouble.
Good example, Rep. Mendive, but take it further. If you choose to use FedEx or UPS instead of the Postal Service, does that mean the government should use taxpayer funds to set up a bank account for you to spend on UPS? Of course not. Similarly, the government shouldn’t set up a bank account for you if you choose to send your kid to a private school.
One more point on the notion of competition. As a former small business owner, myself, I faced competition time and again. My response was to up my game, and that often meant spending more money: We added pages to our weekly newspaper, we added color pages, we hired a part-time reporter to help cover sports, we printed extra copies to deliver to nonsubscribers, we bought newsboxes, we bought new computers, a new camera, new lenses. All of this cost money.
Right now, Idaho legislators are starving public education. Idaho’s per-pupil spending is dead last in the country. If public schools are to compete with private schools, I would expect legislators to ask teachers, parents, principals, students and counselors what they need to compete and give it to them (hint, they are saying what they need, but legislators aren’t listening or giving them what they need).
There’s a long laundry list of reasons to oppose this bill and many of them were pointed out during the committee hearing and in hearings past, not the least of which is the constitutionality of using taxpayer dollars on private schools, which could include religious schools. And apparently, according to the bill’s sponsors, it’s not OK to discriminate against a school that teaches Catholic doctrine, but it would be OK to discriminate against a school that includes critical race theory in its curriculum.
A good point was also made about fairness. Of the 121 private schools in Idaho, 29 of them are in Ada County. There are none in Gooding or Lincoln counties and only two in Blaine County, according to Rep. Sally Toone, D-Gooding. This bill necessarily would create a system of geographic imbalance right off the bat.
One more thing I’d like to point out (again): Idaho already has a tax-advantaged education savings account called the 529 plan that can be used for private K-12 schools.
If Idaho legislators are truly interested in helping low-income students, rural students or students who struggle in their school setting, then properly fund the public education system.
