Role Of Idaho Ed Board Challenged Board Shouldn’t Deal With Public Schools, Evans Says

Former State Schools Superintendent Jerry Evans and a number of former state Education Board members told lawmakers on Wednesday that the board should be relieved of responsibility for public schools so it can focus solely on higher education.

Evans, who retired in January after 16 years as the state’s top education official, said there was no real reason to have the board overseeing the operations of the constitutionally elected state superintendent of public instruction.

“When you talk about a superintendent answering to someone, they always answer to the Legislature and they always answer to the people,” Evans said.

He was joined by former board members Karl Shurtliff, John Swartley, and Robert Montgomery.

The suggestion to the special House-Senate panel taking yet another look at the way Idaho runs its educational system came in the wake of the upheaval in the Department of Education since the inauguration of Evans’ successor, Republican Anne Fox.

A near-absence of confidence among local school superintendents in her ability to manage the department and concern about positions she had taken and her dismissal of key department personnel prompted the board to reclaim the control over public schools it had essentially ceded to Evans through the years of his administration.

Only Keith Hinckley, who was on the board when that action was taken in March, disagreed, admitting that his view now is different from the one he held two years ago. He agrees the state board should focus on higher education but a second one should be set up to oversee public schools.