“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits
One of the enduring lessons of the COVID era is that systems are meant to serve individuals, not the other way around.
On March 13, 2020, the day the first official case of coronavirus was announced in Idaho, a celebration was taking place on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol honoring the 100-year anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Kate, a senior at Boise High School who had been on an experiential learning trip, said this:
“My perception of the word ‘school’ shifted from a noun to a verb. School was no longer a place so much as it was an experience. This was due to the fact that we never sat in an actual classroom to learn about a certain subject. Instead, we the students, and our teachers sought out lessons provided by the real world where we could actually experience what we were learning.”
Within days of that event, school as a noun meant an empty building and school as a verb meant learn anywhere you could.
We are now almost four years from that moment.
Have we learned what Kate taught us? That learning is not now and was not then an event in a building?
We have been leaders in supporting policies that give parents the control over their children’s education and recognize that learning can occur in many different settings. These initiatives include support for public charter schools, advanced opportunity funding, expanded open enrollment, Empowering Parents Micro Grant funding for public and non-public students, credit for learning outside the classroom while also supporting historic increases in education funding of public schools.
Our Constitution uses the words “general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools” to describe the education system they envisioned in 1889.
There are various definitions of those words in Idaho Code, but for purposes of discussion today in 2024, what if uniform manifests as “standardized” instead of “personalized,” driven by standardized assessments? What if your chances of learning to read at grade level are not uniform because you live on the wrong side of State Street?
What if public meant supporting a student with public funding wherever they learn best, the same way public funding supports patients in hospitals operated by religious organizations or consumers in privately owned grocery stores?
If free means “at no cost to the student,” it couldn’t possibly mean that for taxpayers. What if free meant a student was free to learn in the environment that matches their values and works best for them?
This session, we will continue our support of educating all Idaho’s kids by introducing the Parental Choice Tax Credit bill. The program will allow for a refundable tax credit, up to $5,000 per Idaho student, ($7,500 for special needs students) for non-public academic instruction. It also applies to textbooks, curriculum, transportation, and tuition — all based on what parents think is best for their kids. Research shows education choice programs improve outcomes for kids in any system.
Idaho’s educational goals haven’t helped us much in the past decade. Whether that’s 60% with a degree, going on to college or every third grader reading at grade level, it hasn’t happened. But we’ve sure spent a lot of money trying.
An editorial once compared education to a race with a common starting line. That idea is so repulsive we can barely repeat it. But it is symptomatic of our problem.
The starting line isn’t the important part; the student and their personal, upward learning trajectory is. Until we commit to getting every single student across the finish line, regardless of their starting point or learning environment, we will continue to fall to the level of our systems rather than rise to the level of our goals.
Rep. Wendy Horman is a Republican from Idaho Falls. Sen. Lori Den Hartog is a Republican from Meridian.
Link: https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article284173553.html