Washington Backs Ed, Idaho Doesn’t

For six months, Washington’s Legislature was fixated on meeting its constitutional duty to adequately fund schools and coming up with $1 billion as a down payment. Everything else - whether to raise taxes, enact reforms or even a transportation bill - took a back seat. On the eve of Idaho’s 2013 legislative session, Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter conceded Idaho was “probably not” satisfying its constitutional obligations to education. Lawmakers then proceeded to devote their session to debating how much to cut corporate property taxes. Rescuing Idaho schools from the latest round of spending cuts, their next-to-last national ranking in per-pupil expenditures or the 20 percent cut in the share of personal income assigned to schools never came up. What’s the difference? Hard to see any in the constitutions themselves/ Marty Trillhaase , Lewiston Tribune. More here.

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