IFF - Idaho Freedom Foundation

When a district loses students, it’s entitled to a bailout. Not so for public charter schools.

Previously I wrote about Idaho Code 33-1003:

Everyone’s heard of government programs paying farmers not to farm and rewarding dairy producers for pouring milk down the drain. Not as well-known, however, is the law requiring Idahoans to pay for students who don’t exist.

The state of Idaho calculates its portion of K-12 public education funding based in part upon “average daily attendance” or ADA. This policy is designed to prevent spending money on students who are enrolled but not attending. However, Idaho Code section 33-1003 mandates payment for students who aren’t even enrolled:

The teachers’ union hymnal, which is echoed by most opinion writers, has the following lyrics: public schools and public school teachers are always entitled to more. Education is to be exempted from the diminished income many of us are living with these days. And if you have a problem with any of this, you are anti-education, anti-child and very possibly dangerous.

Many people who have put a lot of thought into it – and many others who have also bet something of their fortunes on it - believe the future holds a customized learning experience for every student. Odds are it will not look exactly as pictured in the 2009 Star Trek reboot movie with little Vulcans in their individual learning pods.

High voter turnout makes passing school district bonds and levies difficult, and it’s not going to get any easier in the future.

From the May 15, 2010 Idaho Falls Post-Register:

The Idaho Freedom Foundation has criticized the Pocatello/Chubbuck school board for violating state open meetings law. Under the guise of personnel issues, the school board went into executive session and then cut all administrative salaries by 6.9%. Reducing an entire class of employees’ salaries is a budget issue, not a personnel one, and all germane discussion needs to happen in public, not behind closed doors.

A school district trustee’s job is to administer for the benefit of a school district. That is not the same thing as administering for the benefit of students.

A trustee in Rexburg said too much in the Rexburg Standard Journal’s “Madison School District cuts school year by one week, saving $100,000” on April 24:

Even the most casual news observer has surely noticed it by now: public education budgets are dropping. For many school boards and administrators it’s the first time, ever, they’ve had to think about making do with considerably less.

My husband is a Sony fan. He has strong preferences following many years of selling consumer electronics.

I personally have not been such a careful student of the variances between brands of stereos, TVs and DVD players. However, my marriage has taught me (among other things) Sony’s products are more dependable, last longer and are at least as aesthetically pleasing as comparable products. Because I expect it to be better, I expect to pay more for a Sony TV than for the similar Akai sitting next to it.