The problem with education reform: No. 1 of a series

Okay, there’s more than one problem, but the Boise Metro Chamber hit on a major one during its recent meeting in Sun Valley. The education bureaucracy is slow and cumbersome…and that is not a criticism of anyone, it just is. First, understand that state K-12 education is the most political of all entities and agencies of government. It is the only one that receives funds and mandates from the federal government, is run by the state, must win a local vote to build a school, gets its employees’ salary and pay raises from the legislature, yet must negotiate the distribution of the money with unions in each individual school district, of which Idaho has over one hundred.

What a mess! Yet it is a system very common to most states. I’ve lived in eight, and Idaho’s public education is pretty good in comparison, with decent funding that is mostly used wisely and with quality, dedicated professionals in the schools.

But there is no way we would design the system and structure today the way it is set up. And unlike businesses, we can’t just sell off pieces of it and start over where we wish. If we want to innovate and improve with our public education it will take vision and courage, and real change. It won’t take more money – just a redistribution of how it is spent.

First and foremost the building of schools must become a state function. The burden and argument for schools to provide state mandated compulsory education can no longer be conducted between local districts and their constituent businesses and homeowners.

Local school superintendents and boards must be able to make their case to the state for new and renovated schools, have them approved and placed in a “queue,” and funded and dealt with like any state building. Never again should the children of Buhl, Cambridge, or Kamiah be held hostage to a poor local economy for the building of schools.

With the cost of school buildings distributed across the state local school superintendents and their boards will no longer meet at cross purposes with their business community on issues of property tax. And removing from the school districts the cost, functions and emotions of running bond campaigns will allow more focus on their core mission – a very sound business principle.