Voucher sticker shock raises problem: Can Idaho spend $360 million without oversight? | Opinion

Vouchers are looking more costly by the day.

The fiscal note on Senate Bill 1038, which would create a system of vouchers to fund homeschooling and private schooling, claims the program would eat only about $44 million in education funding.

That has never seemed to be a remotely credible figure — partly because the bill’s main sponsors, Sens. Tammy Nichols and Brian Lenney, haven’t demonstrated a credible grasp on the policy they’re proposing.

Luckily, Idaho does have people with a grasp of policy. And the picture painted by outside budget experts is dire.

Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy Director Alejandra Cerna Rios on Monday posted a brief fiscal analysis of the cost of the program in the first year after implementation. Her estimate, based on the history of similar programs implemented in Arizona and Florida, is that within one year, the budget would balloon from $44 million to over $360 million.

Nothing like a 700% annual growth rate to get a budget hawk’s attention.

And there’s a flip side, as well. What would a program like this do to existing homeschool and private school families?

Idaho government is expected to spend a total of about $14 billion in combined state and federal funds next year, so it can get away with running a $45 million program without a whole lot of oversight because it’s a very small portion of the total budget.

But a $360 million program? There’s no way that amount of spending can be without a significant accountability structure. That means government measuring student achievement, monitoring spending, examining curricula, etc. All of this is exactly what a lot of homeschool and private school families want to avoid, the reason they left the public school system in the first place.

This provides serious justification for the concerns that many of Idaho’s homeschooling families — who had to fight serious court battles decades ago for the right to educate their children the way they want — have with the voucher program.

“Simply put, what the government funds, the government controls and regulates,” warns Homeschool Idaho. “Any homeschool that receives government funds will be co-teaching with the government. Regulations will typically start small, but once the private option is eliminated, through being lumped into the single system, the regulations will become indistinguishable from those placed on other school options.”

Homeschoolers and private school families deserve the right to pursue an education that they design for themselves if they don’t want to participate in the public school system.

The Idaho Constitution does not call for funding the education of every student no matter where they get that education. It calls for the maintenance of a good public school system that is available to any child who wants to join in.

Idaho is on its way to having that, particularly with another year of significant proposed increases in public education funding backed by Gov. Brad Little.

Taking $360 million out of that system would immeasurably weaken it, as a huge chunk of those funds ended up subsidizing wealthy kids who are already attending private schools. Meanwhile, private schools would be free to reject the students who need the most help. Those students would be stuck in even more underfunded public schools.

So it’s a policy that would benefit no one. Homeschool and private school families will lose their education freedom in the long run. Public schools would take an enormous hit as funds are siphoned off to benefit wealthy families. The only real beneficiaries would be fly-by-night private schools that would pop up to bag some of those sweet taxpayer dollars before accountability could catch up.

Bryan Clark is an opinion writer for the Idaho Statesman based in eastern Idaho.