Superintendent Candidates Split On Vouchers Sullivan Hounds Fox On Plan To Use State Money To Help Kids Attend Private Schools

The defining issue in the race for state schools superintendent is vouchers, said candidate Willie Sullivan Friday.

Sullivan called vouchers “the beginning of the end of public schools in Idaho.” Taking public money and giving it to private schools is like taking water from a farmer who’s trying to grow healthy crops, he said.

Sullivan made his statements at a Kootenai County Democratic Club luncheon while campaigning on the home turf of his opponent, Anne Fox.

The candidates could not be more different.

Fox, a Republican from Post Falls, believes in a state-funded voucher system to help parents pay for sending their children to private schools.

She also opposes outcome-based education, the Idaho Education Association, and school-based decision-making. Moreover, she is slender and wears her hair in a beehive.

Sullivan, by contrast, is a balding, stocky Democrat from Payette in southern Idaho who once was president of the IEA. He opposes vouchers, advocates greater local control of schools, and on Friday defended outcome-based education.

Idaho’s version of that reform idea is called performance-based education.

“People do not truly understand what this is all about,” he said. “It’s not dumbing down. It’s not teaching a liberal agenda.”

Instead, the idea is to set standards, expect students to perform to those standards and make sure all students meet the minimum standards, he said.

“It doesn’t mean you hold back those who do understand,” he said.

The whole idea of performance-based education had its roots in a 1990 report from Idaho business leaders who wanted high school graduates to have basic skills that would translate easily to the workplace.

Sullivan is an advocate of making school a concept, not a place, where students are involved in their communities, practicing what they learn in a hands-on fashion.

He also wants to see more discipline in Idaho schools.

“It’s going to take the will of the school administrators. It’s not easy,” said Sullivan, a middle school principal with 25 years experience in education. “But those kids do understand rules. They respect rules and they do want direction on how to behave.”

The race for state superintendent also includes Don Hawkins, a former Boise teacher, who has filed to run as an independent.