{"id":1648,"date":"2022-09-20T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T16:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1648"},"modified":"2022-09-20T09:06:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T16:06:16","slug":"half-baked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1648","title":{"rendered":"Half Baked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
courtesy NYSUT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have a good friend that teaches in an Idaho K12 school. We\u2019ve had some warm days this last week as school started. Our house, a 1950\u2019s model with no AC got up to 85 degrees a couple afternoons. I knew his school was of similar vintage, so I inquired about the classroom temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shook his head. \u201cThe day starts at about 80, but we\u2019re above 90 by the afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t open the windows at night, we\u2019re on the ground floor and it wouldn\u2019t be secure. And the classroom is on the southwest corner of the building. The whole west wall is windows. Even with the shades it just bakes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our governor and legislature are congratulating themselves on sending more money to schools with this special session. Brad never ceases to mention how he has devoted more funding to schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the buildings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Idaho legislature was found<\/a> to be violating its Constitutional duty to fund school facilities in 2005. Since then, they have found a way<\/a> to fund charter school facilities, albeit meagerly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look across the Idaho K12 facilities landscape. You will see new schools; you will see old schools. You might see condemned schools. The age old \u201cgood enough for my grandpa\u201d method to fund schools was local school district bond elections. The local community would see the need, agree to raise their property taxes so they could pay off the bond that would fund new construction. Or they could run a levy to fix up the rusty boiler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But property taxes aren\u2019t popular, and the legislature has kept the bar high for bond passage. A district needs 66 and 2\/3rds of voters to agree to shoulder the debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the tally of recent failures<\/a>. Here\u2019s a tearjerker: Vallivue District got 66% support but failed by a few votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time our legislative leaders quit playing social warrior games chasing books out of libraries and beating the CRT drum and got down to brass tacks. Please, move our state into the 21st<\/sup> century about funding school facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charter schools are public schools. They aren\u2019t burdened with the borrowing requirement of school districts. They get money straight from our state coffers (income and sales tax revenue) to fund their buildings. Everyone agrees the funding is inadequate. There aren\u2019t any charter school Taj Mahals. But their method of getting funding isn\u2019t capricious, it\u2019s reliable. And it doesn\u2019t rely on the extremely variable regional property tax base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must disclose, when the scheme for funding charter school facilities came before the legislature in 2012, I voted against it. Not because I didn\u2019t think it was a clear need. I just thought it was half baked. If we are going to fund one set of school buildings from general fund dollars, why not all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lousy solution has emphasized the difference between charter schools without a taxing district, and district schools. But it\u2019s kept both struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know the Idaho Freedom Foundation thinks government should not be in the business of education. Maybe they will organize an initiative to remove Article IX, Section 1 from the Idaho Constitution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I doubt they have the time and energy for such an arduous task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, maybe the School Boards Association, or the School Administrators Association, or a group of frustrated parents will decide to sue the legislature for not performing their Constitutional duty. Heck, the legislature has funded their lawyers\u2019 budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, another heat wave and our students might get fully baked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a good friend that teaches in an Idaho K12 school. We\u2019ve had some warm days this last week as school started. Our house, a 1950\u2019s model with no AC got up to 85 degrees a couple afternoons. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}