Category Archives: Funding

Missing: Textbooks

Trehal, Clayton headshot cropped400

Clayton Trehal  has been an educator for 19 years and an administrator for 7,

As I write this, another legislative session has begun, The governor is armed with his education task force’s suggestions, a senator has proposed to raise the sales tax for education in exchange for stripping districts of their ability to run supplemental levies, and the house has just passed a bill to limit re-voting on school district supplemental levies. In other words, things are normal in that we have an educational task force and legislators are busy in their usual task of finding ways to reduce ways to fund schools. In this background, though, what no one is talking about is the fact that  the majority of our schools don’t have textbooks and that this is a monumental issue affecting the quality of our education.
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Let’s pay Idaho lawmakers like 1st year teachers

Idaho lawmakers have a pretty good gig going for them in terms of their compensation for a part-time gig.  In fact, the current payout for the 2020 year is $18,415, plus health insurance and PERSI (Idaho’s pension system).

Last year, lawmakers were at their posts inside the State Capitol Building for just 74 days. That equates to $248.85 per day. Not bad huh? And last year went longer than most.

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The Idaho Legislature owns making “College” the newest dirty word in the Gem State

Levi B Cavener

By Levi B Cavener 

There are lots of reasons to be frustrated with post-secondary education in the Gem State, starting with tuition that has ballooned astronomically in proportion to inflation.

In fact, as IdahoEdNews reported, tuition costs are up 34% since 2010, even though inflation was only 13%. That’s a steep 21% increase even when adjusted for inflation. So, what gives? Continue reading