Is there much wrong with public education in Idaho?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heck no. Conservatives like the Idaho Freedom Foundation like to disparage and belittle Idaho’s public school system. And on June 9, 2024 there is an article by Bob ‘Nugie’ Neugebauer at the Gem State Patriot News on June 9, 2024 titled What’s wrong with public education in Idaho? (and subtitled The Case for School Choice). His first two paragraphs say:

 

“I’m not sure how many times I have to say this but if you want to solve the problems of our school system, parents need to start by attending the school board meetings and voting for conservative board members. It’s interesting that Idaho is still at the bottom of the scale nationally when it comes to K-12 education spending at $8,100 per student, considering we spend over $3 billion on public education, which is about 55% of the state budget. Yet even spending that huge sum of money, we do not get the bang for our buck as taxpayers.

 

The question is why do we rank so low for spending eight thousand per pupil while Utah spends about the same and is ranked number 2 in the country in K-12?”

 

In the second paragraph he incorrectly referred to another article at U.S. News, which actually ranked Utah at #6 for PreK-12, and at #2 considering both PreK-12 and Higher Education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s interesting is where we rank relative to all six of our neighbors, not just Utah. For PreK-12 those rankings actually are:

 

Utah #6

Wyoming #19

Idaho #23

Montana #27

Washington #32

Oregon #44

Nevada #45

 

We rank #23 (in the top half) which is not so low – and third among our neighbors. And considering both PreK-12 and Higher Education the rankings are:

 

Utah #2

Wyoming #7

Washington #13

Idaho #18

Montana #22

Nevada #37

Oregon #40

 

We rank #18 (again in the top half) which is not so low – and fourth among our neighbors (right in the middle).

 

How about his claim “we do not get the bang for our buck as taxpayers.”  An article by Jason Bedrick and Jonathan Butcher from a conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, on

September 16, 2022 is instead titled Heritage Foundation finds Idaho schools deliver biggest bang for the buck. Then there was yet another article by Ronald N. Nate at the Idaho Freedom Foundation on December 7, 2023 titled Losing Streak – Idaho Educational Freedom. I blogged about it on December 9, 2023 in a post titled Did Idaho’s educational freedom have a losing streak? For Return on Investment, we and our neighbors ranked as follows (with an amazing top trifecta!):

 

Idaho #1

Utah #2

Nevada #3

Washington #8

Montana #26

Oregon #39

Wyoming #41

 

And the overall rankings were:

 

Utah #3

Idaho #11

Montana #17

Nevada #23

Wyoming #34

Washington #43

Oregon #51

 

The school cartoon came from Openclipart.