Rhetoric doesn’t help education
In a recent Lewiston Tribune editorial, Opinion Editor Marty Trillhaase advises Idahoans to look at the facts and not politician rhetoric when it comes to state support for public education:
If you want to know whether Idaho’s schools are recovering from years of legislative neglect, don’t take the politicians’ word for it. Look at the evidence:
- Are you seeing any decline in the number of school districts relying on supplemental property tax levies to fill in the funding gaps?
- Is there less money being raised through the property tax?
- Are fewer school districts operating on a four-day week?
Lawmakers closed their 2015 session with the best public school budget in years - a 7.4 percent, $101.2 million increase. But the share of Idaho’s personal income devoted to public education is down more than $500 million a year since the turn of the century. And when you consider inflation and growing enrollments, schools have yet to recover what they lost during the Great Recession. So little has changed. More here.
Question: Why is public education of so little importance to the Idaho Legislature, especially to most of the legislators in Kootenai County?
* This story was originally published as a post from the blog "Huckleberries Online." Read all stories from this blog