Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, in his closing debate, said it's difficult to cut funding for schools, as Idaho is doing, without cutting into salaries and benefits, but local districts can make those decisions. "They can look at salaries, they can look at benefits, they can look at furlough days, they can look at downsizing the number of teachers," he said. He said no version of the bill he's seen since December required school district consolidation. "We're committing a very fundamental part of our funding to this long-term plan, and it needs to be in policy," he said. He said, "This is nothing new," saying Idaho's funded technology before and made changes in education policy before.

He said, "Idaho's not first down this road. There are 15,000 schools in the United States that have 1-to-1 laptop programs."

 

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