It was close, but the Senate has defeated a proposed amendment to HB 303a that would have limited the funding for "virtual" instruction to just the Idaho Digital Learning Academy and courses offered by public Idaho colleges or universities. Sen. Dick Sagness, D-Pocatello, who sponsored the amendment with Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, said the bill otherwise, as proposed by state Schools Superintendent Tom Luna, will allow state funding to go for virtual instruction with "no sideboards" - no regulation on the quality of the instruction, and no assurance that the money won't just be sent off to out-of-state private organizations peddling online instruction.

"This bill fundamentally in many ways is about privatizing education and money, and that money is going to go out of state," Sagness warned the Senate. Senate Education Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, spoke against the amendment. "In another time, another place I might have supported this," he said. But he said school districts want to tap into online instruction other than IDLA and state colleges. "The problem is that the IDLA doesn't offer a complete curriculum - you can't take 2nd grade from the IDLA. ... They offer specific courses rather than a complete curriculum."

After that amendment was defeated, the Senate began debating one from Goedde, to give school districts that have met building maintenance needs the chance, for one year, to use district funds now required by the state to go to a maintenance fund to instead use the money to meet other district needs during the current budget crunch.

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