The Post Register reported well on Idaho’s third-rate educational system. They were too polite, however, in just presenting the evidence and pointing to where Idaho is headed. I will be more blunt and painfully honest. Nicety political talk has gotten us to a dire state, so blunt words and an unambiguous messages is required here.
Idaho is viewed as a backwards state by most of our fellow Americans. They mostly think Idaho is populated by a bunch of uneducated hicks. I talk daily to people around the country, andthey always have a comment about Idaho being backwards and Idahoans uneducated. Then they say how beautiful Idaho scenery is. Uneducated first, beautiful scenery second. Are these the perceptions we want about Idaho?
I have graduated from college, so I see I am in the highest 23% of our educated population. I have also taken several graduate-level courses, so that probably puts me in the top 10 or 15%. I do not feel or view myself as better than anyone but meth addicts, so these statistics trouble me.
The arguing needs to stop about what to do. It is obvious we have screwed up our educational system, and our kids are suffering for it. Years of ‘local control’ have resulted in putting our kids at a disadvantage and setting them up for low-wages. It is time to make changes.
The immediate changes Idaho needs to make include:
- Fund 1/2 day preschool programs that use the current 1/2 day kindergarten curriculum.
- Make full-day kindergarten mandatory for Idaho kids, and fund it appropriately.
- Increase per-pupil spending from $6k to the national average $8,287 in the very next year, then progress in stages after that so Idaho is one of the top five states in per-pupil expenditures in five years.
- Increase high school graduation requirements in math and science to be the ranked with the top five states in America. If some kids are unable to fit in seminary or choir, that is too bad. Seminary and choir skills are not going to lead Idaho or America in this century.
- Create and fund a new mandatory class for all Idaho seventh graders where they shop online for computer components, assemble a complete computer case, then can take the computers home for their homework and family use. Yes, Idaho would effectively be giving all our students computers, but they students would have to assemble the computers themselves and pass a knowledge test to take them home.
Some people say throwing money at the problem will not solve it. All of the ‘creative’ solutions over the last years used as an alternative to hard cash have resulted in the dire Idaho education system we enjoy today. Throwing money at the Department of Defense has done wonders for America’s military strength, throwing money at Idaho’s education system will do wonders for our children’s education, earning potential, and life opportunities.
“Give a man a fish and feed him for one day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him and his family for a lifetime” Isn’t it time we start enabling our kids for a better future?
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I think you missed another important education struggle, to create a unified community college system in Idaho. This would help ease more Idaho students from high school to college. I agree with all the other points made.
It is also worth noting that Idaho has some of the most crowded classrooms in this country and don’t we rank 45th in the country for spending per child? Politicians in Idaho (and I am mainly referring to one party) think that public education is a privilege and a burden to the State. No, education is a right and it is time they realize that.
Commentary today against high school curriculum redesign argued about the importance of local control.
I am sure our local school administrators are doing the best job they can, but I don’t think even 3 of them in all of Idaho districts are experts at curriculum desing or international learning standards.
Local control is a crutch to keep their local kids on the farms and from moving away to better jobs.
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What’s sad is the amount of remediation going on all the way up through the 12th grade. Students seem to be able to know less and less every decade and still move on to graduation. I have witnessed far too many high school teachers spending a good portion of the semester re-doing what should have been learned in junior high or elementary school.
Not to mention the increased behavior issues, kids who mouth off and have a sense of entitlement (usually matches the parent attitude), as well as the amount of migrant students who speak little English taking up mass amounts of a teacher’s time. We would not have dared say to teachers in the 70’s and 80’s what gets said now, much less wear the skimpy clothes they do in many schools.
If you have a gifted or at least pretty smart kid, it’s almost like you have to look at private school options or supplementing their public school education at home.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of good in schools, but teachers are being asked to put up with and do far more than I think they should.
I agree with the author kindergarten should be made mandatory in Idaho. Also, there should be passing requirements to go to the next grade for every school. As it stands now, if a child is recommended to be held back, the parent can fight it and move them on. Students in junior high can flunk/D their way through and make it to high school easily (in many districts). The end result for Johnny in high school is disastrous. Wrong, just wrong.
Remember when Dirk Kempthorne tried some nonsense about “generation of the child” or that he wanted to be known as the “education governor”, but nothing really happened. Was it that his proposals were weak or our anti-education legislature blocked him?
Maybe an education reform agenda is needed, suggesting 5-10 improvements, and ranking them by importance.
I would suggest mandatory kindergarten in Idaho, tie per-pupil expenditures to the national average (which effectively raises Idaho’s expenditures), exempt college graduates from paying state income taxes in the year they graduate, implement personal finance coursework in 8th and 11th grades, develop information literacy standards throughout K-12, and setup a statewide community college system.
What would you suggest, or which would you rank as most important? Personally I think developing information literacy/savvy and personal finance courses would be the most helpful to Idaho’s general population. I think exempting state income tax for the year a person graduates with an Idaho higher education degree would help keep professionals in Idaho and help our business climate.
the problem also lies with the poor wages the teachers get. In todays world no one really wants to be a teacher because they can’t afford it. we need to up the teacher salary statewide and maybe we can retain teachers on the longterm scale.
Yeah, it is rough working 9 months out of the year and making that type of money is rough. In fairness, I haven’t spent enough time on this specific issue to have formed a solid opinion. Do you really think that salaries are that big of a problem as to why kids aren’t learning?
I think salaries are very important. I taught school, and it got to every month that we could not even pay our bills. We cut corners, canceled Internet, TV, and basic home phone services, and we still could not pay our monthly bills! It becomes difficult to stay motivated to teach and inspire your kids when I struggled daily to provide for my own kid.
When I moved to Idaho Falls I was offered two jobs at the same time: one was teaching and one was a private-sector job making lots of money. I wanted to teach, but decided I could not put my family through that anymore. It is difficult to want to put your own family through that hardship when Idaho clearly does not even appreciate the teachers they do have.
There is always more to a situation than the bumper sticker slogans. “Work 9 months part-time” is one of those mistaken impressions. There are many unpaid hours that teachers work beyond what they are required to do, and the districts do not pay many benefits.
Increasing teacher salaries will be a critical success factor for Idaho to pull itself out of the 19th century, but it is certainly not the only change we need to make.
Other critical success factors include funding early childhood education, emphasizing personal financial education and information literacy, and providing state income tax waivers for the year a person graduates from an Idaho college.
All of it is going to take money though, and Idaho is too cheap to make the investments in our own kids. I foresee Idaho falling ridiculously farther behind America in the next 10 years.