Idaho policymakers and advocates are getting ready for another push to bring private school choice to our state.
With the 2025 legislative session less than a month away, the legislature will likely see many different proposals in regards to school choice, but is private school choice good for Idaho students?
Former Idaho representative and board member of Idaho Children are Primary, Julie Yamamoto, fellow board member and former Idaho First Lady Patricia Kempthorne and May Roberts, policy analyst at the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, joined Idaho Matters to discuss this issue.
Read the full transcript below:
GAUDETTE: From the studios of Boise State Public Radio News, I'm Gemma Gaudette. This is Idaho Matters. Idaho policymakers and advocates are getting ready for another push to bring private school choice to our state. And with the 2025 legislative session less than a month away, the legislature will likely see many different proposals in regards to school choice during this legislative session. However, is private school choice good for Idaho students? Joining us today to discuss this issue are former Idaho representative and board member of Idaho Children or Primary, Julie Yamamoto, along with fellow board member and former Idaho First Lady Patricia Kempthorne, along with May Roberts, policy analyst at the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy. I'd like to welcome all three of you to the program today.
ROBERTS: Thank you for having us.
KEMPTHORNE: Thank you. Gemma.
GAUDETTE: Mrs. Kempthorne, let me begin with you. Can you tell us what Idaho children are primary is? What is your mission? What does your organization do?
KEMPTHORNE: Thank you. Gemma. Yes. And thank you for inviting us to be here today. The Idaho Children Are Primary is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 500 and 1C4 grassroots organization were made up of all volunteers. We have on our board of directors, those from the legislative branch, educators, pediatricians, business expertise and community advocates. And our mission is to put children at the forefront of the policy discussions and evaluate legislation based on one simple question: is this good for kids? And we do that in a in a way by providing first, just thoughtful analysis and on policy issues affecting children. We look for the data and the evidence based research on these key areas such as education, health care, the welfare and economic security of children. And then we want to communicate that information and see how it directly impacts families and children in Idaho and elevate the issues that we think are key to that. And by doing that, each year, we will rate legislation relating to families and kids and inform legislators of our position, share with them that research and understanding. And at the end of the session, there is a scorecard, the Kids Matters index, that shows how each legislator scored. And you can find that on, um, IdahoChildrenArePriority.org. And you can see that index from 2024. We had I think, 25 bills that we released that we rated in 2024.
GAUDETTE: And Julie, talk to us a little bit more about this scorecard. What is the value of of really rating these, this legislation in regards to children and family. And then, you know, being transparent about it, informing the public about your scorecard, as Mrs. Kempthorne just mentioned.
YAMAMOTO: Pretty important to legislature. Legislators are faced with a myriad of bills that come at them very quickly when they come. They wait a long time in the beginning, but then there's a flurry and it's fast and furious from when it starts till right to the last day of session, and you can't know everything about everything. And so what Children are primary. What they do is they focus in specifically, as Patricia said, on issues that matter specifically to children. And it allows a legislator to get information in real time about not just what they think about it. But what from a national level, from a state level, even a grassroots level. What are people thinking about this legislation that relates directly to children? And then it more than once I've had someone from Idaho Children Are Primary actually come in the office and visit with me and just give me good information, ask really pertinent questions that cause you to see where they're coming from and why it matters, and what it is that you're going to be voting on. And that's where it probably comes down to the the tough part is sometimes what you end up voting on isn't what is readily apparent to the to the public.
GAUDETTE: May. Let's talk about school choice because as I mentioned in the beginning, this is definitely an issue that that we saw last year, something almost bill almost passed last year. But it can also be really confusing because there are so many different names around school choice. You've got vouchers, ESA, tax credits. So may can you just explain to us what these are.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Thank you. So, um, I just see these terms as being very different. Um, but being interchanged a lot, like you're saying, there's, there's a lot of terms being put out around out there. Um, I see school choice as education policies that expand parents choices of an education that best fits their kid. Um, Idaho has great school choice options now, like homeschooling, online school, public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and so on. Um, and then private school voucher policies are policies that allow state dollars to subsidize private K-12 education. So there are traditional school vouchers that take funding directly from public schools and give it to private schools. Um, there are education savings accounts or ESAs, um, vouchers, where parents can access a set amount of state funding to pay for various private education expenses and private school tax credits to give tax breaks to parents to send their children to private school. A majority of the benefits of those kinds of programs go to children that are already enrolled in private school. So we see that school choice is not meaningfully expanded under these policies.
GAUDETTE: So with that said, May, if I'm understanding this correctly, no matter what it's called, vouchers, ESA, tax credits. Is it the taxpayer? Money is then used for parents to decide where they would like their children to go to school. And it can be a public school, but as you said, it can be homeschooling, it could be online, it could be a private school.
ROBERTS: There are yeah, there are many different kinds of mechanisms that could be used.
GAUDETTE: So May, we also know that school choice has passed in other states. And and advocates say this really does put children first because it allows parents to be able to choose where they want their child to go to school. With that said, can you walk us through and tell us what has passed in other states?
ROBERTS: Yes. So that is the argument of advocates. Um, Arizona found that over 75% of kids that signed up for their school voucher program, um, already attend private school in Arizona. They have the one of the most expansive, um, universal education savings account voucher programs. Um, but yeah, so that's just one of many different kinds of school types of school voucher programs that pass in other states. Um, the trend overall is that it starts with a small tax credit program and then grows to these huge universal education savings accounts programs over time. Um, there's a study out by public funds, public schools of seven states that provide private school vouchers. Um, and they found that over a ten year period, private school voucher spending more than doubled. Um, while the state's efforts to fund public schools declined despite public school enrollment actually increasing. Um, Oklahoma recently passed a private school tax credit voucher similar to the proposal discussed discussed at the end of Idaho's last legislative session. Um, and a study of Oklahoma's program found that 20% of private schools increase their tuition in response as much as 100% in some cases, so doubling their tuition rates.
GAUDETTE: And May I do want to dig in a little bit more to the state of Arizona. I know at your organization, the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, you really dig into the data. Um, and Arizona, as you mentioned, has a voucher system. Can you talk to us about how much this system has been costing taxpayers versus what proponents of this voucher system said that it would originally cost?
ROBERTS: Right. Um, so Arizona has been expanding their school voucher program for decades. I think it started back in as a little tiny program in the 1990s, and it's just grown exponentially over time. The largest jump was in 2022 and they made their education savings account voucher universal, meaning that no matter your income, you can obtain this program and it's been devastating to their budget. It was supposed to cost $33 million in the first year. Um, but it actually cost $550 million. That's 517 million over budget. And the second year it was supposed to cost 65 million, but cost $950 million in the second year. So that's 885 million over budget. And this year is no different. It's projected to be over 200 to $300 million over budget. So due to this storm of cutting income taxes to a flat tax in 2022 in Arizona and then creating a universal education savings account voucher program on top of it, Arizona is facing a $400 million budget budget shortfall this year.
GAUDETTE: Julie, you, as I mentioned, are a former Idaho representative. In fact, you were on the House Education Committee. Um, and one of these bills as as May mentioned, one similar to Oklahoma, almost passed last session here in Idaho. What was it that concerned you or at least gave you pause when it came to passing a school choice bill last session?
YAMAMOTO: I think that, as May has pointed out, one only needs to follow the money, and as you follow the money, it should give a pretty clear indication about why Idahoans should be very concerned about the potential for it blowing up the budget for the idea that the legislature was very careful about saying, we're only going to pay Idaho schools for students who actually show up and they're enrolled. And so you have to plan as if they are there, but you really have you have some control, but you don't have total control over whether kids show up at school or not. But they only get paid on average daily attendance. And given what we've seen over time, there obviously was a big difference in what the money that came from enrollment as opposed to average daily attendance.
So if you're looking at what all of that's going to do to the regular public school, when we're charged with making sure that we're fiscally conservative and that we don't want to be putting our hands in the pocket of other taxpayers to pay for something, we, as I as an individual, want. I couldn't see anything that was less conservative than this tax credit, the ESA, whatever you called it, no one is putting in $9,000 a year into education. And if you don't have children, you certainly should have some say as to whether your whatever you're putting in goes towards a private education or to what the state constitution says. A public, uniform, free public education and private just isn't in there. So from a from a conservative standpoint, economically, from a what we say we are actually doing, uh, are those rural school kids actually can they benefit from this at all, even though that's what we're pushing forward. And the answer to that is no. And then, you know, just what are we actually doing to to the budget? It's going what we have seen in every other state is it blows up the education budget. And if that's what people want and they want to pay more taxes, well then fine. But that's I never heard that in I never heard that from any constituents.
GAUDETTE: And Julie, we should point out that the one thing that the Idaho Legislature is tasked to do is that they must have a balanced budget at the end of every session. Was there a concern as well for you as you looked at these bills last session, like, how will we moving forward be able to do this.
YAMAMOTO: Especially since we're we were trying diligently to lower taxes, property taxes, even if it's in the form of we're going to have we're going to use more sales tax. And I think that's fine because then that's money that's being spent. But then don't do things that make it less likely that people can spend money and keep that sales tax flowing through the state. And there there are just so many moving parts. And yes, it's highly concerning it, you know, to think that Idaho would be we would be the only state who could get it right. I just think, well, that's a wonderful, idealistic thought. But the reality is not that. And I think anyone that is truly conservative as a fiscal conservative or anyone who truly says they care about the children who are in those schools with the lights on or off. Regardless of how many students show up that you have to think of all of those things. And it was not just because it was the soup of the day, which to me, that's what I what it is.
GAUDETTE: Patricia, are you concerned something like what is happening in in Arizona could happen to Idaho? May gave us those those numbers just a moment ago. And here's also with Arizona's law zero accountability, no transparency. Um, you know, you can make however much money as, as, as you want, as you can afford and still get this tax credit. Right. And what what we do know is that the majority of people, at least in Arizona, who have used these vouchers, already had their children in private school. So I am curious as to when you look at these numbers, what your questions are.
KEMPTHORNE: Well, and it's it is just all that you've said and both May and Julie approach it from looking from the outside in, because not being right in the middle of it, having all the information that May has or as a as Julie and a legislature just as a citizen of Idaho, it doesn't make any sense to me. This doesn't fit with how I have always understood Idaho to be, even though I would love to see more money put into education. And there's so much things we can do. And to May's point, I look at the last I'd have to say, 30 years of at least being connected to this and seeing what we how we fought for charter schools to help that choice, how we worked on, um, online curriculum so they could have that. Our, our home schooling community does an amazing job and they are happy to do it themselves. They don't want they don't need somebody to tell them how to do it. They are they love it. So I that to me is we there's more we could do but I'm not understanding how this actually helps Idaho's kids.
And it doesn't make any sense to me that as a taxpayer, I would get money and never have to explain how I tax others, take that money from the state and not have to, um, explain where I spend it. Nobody. And what I looked at when I looked at, um, Arizona. It looked there was no there's no transparency, no accountability for anything of that. As those dollars go up to 960 million. And, um, you know, some of them, yes, are going to a private school, a religious school many people want to leave to be put their kids in a religious school. That's great, and that's possible. But what about when we don't know where it went? And how much of that do we not have accountability with? None of it makes sense to me. And we've looked at this over the last few years trying to find some answers, and I think that's what we're looking for. Help us see some answers. If it's if it is a good thing. I just haven't found those yet.
GAUDETTE: I want to talk next about the impacts of school choice or a voucher system on Idaho's educational system. Julie. Research shows that in other states, up to 75% of vouchers or essay um applicants are students who are already in private schools. You mentioned rural Idaho. Idaho is a rural state with the majority of our private schools in our urban centers. So my question for you is this are you concerned that if some type of school choice system passes in Idaho this upcoming legislative session, how would that impact students who don't live in our urban areas, who have access to these private schools and even charter schools?
YAMAMOTO: So if the money is following children, and it follows children out of the main pot of money, which we talked about is by average daily attendance. That's those schools throughout Idaho are just going to have to keep trying to figure out how to do more with less, which they have been doing, and really well. We there are people who want to focus on individual teachers or things that happen as indicative of Idaho education as a whole, and nothing could be further from the truth. And yet there's just a lot of emphasis on that to make the case for why this money should follow kids out of the public sector into the private sector. But, uh, as to your point, that just leaves less money for those rural schools that are already struggling and don't have the tax base to do a supplemental levy or a bond levy to replace failing infrastructure or just curriculum choices. And so it's just going to have a truly deleterious effect on all public schools. And I'm just I want to make the point that I was one of the first to to be in on the ground floor of charter schools in Idaho and had the privilege to open a charter school.
And one of the things that was attractive to me about that, besides that we were going to be allowed to have innovative practices that then could be used in all public schools across Idaho, which I haven't seen huge, um, dividends in that yet, but largely because I think sometimes we don't choose to grab on to those things that work and then implement them everywhere. But one of the things we said is that what we get from the state we can live on. And if you were watching what happened in the legislative session just last session in House Ed, uh, charter schools came and asked for more money because they said that what they are getting isn't enough for them to sustain what they're doing. And, you know, we started off in strip malls and in, you know, small settings. And now all of a sudden things are in a whole different, um, place. And that's going to be that's the issue, isn't it? Is that there is only so much of a pie that you can put towards education. And when you start diluting it by channeling money to now private education, then it only makes sense that you can rob Peter to pay Paul. So long before it's going to have a negative effect. And I think rural schools will see it first.
GAUDETTE: May your organization, the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, released a white report last January. And in this report, you estimated the cost of private school vouchers in Idaho to be upwards of $360 million. And folks, you can see that white report it is on Idaho children are primaries website. So there is transparency there if you want to take a look at it. With that said, May, can you take us through how you got to those numbers? Because as I mentioned in the beginning of this conversation, a bill that almost passed in the Idaho Legislature last session would have only funded $50 million, with proponents saying that that is all the money that would be needed to fund this system.
ROBERTS: Right. So that $360 million figure came from estimating what a universal education savings account voucher program would cost the state of Idaho. So that's like Arizona or Florida scale, um, program. And, um, the proposal from last session was like a different mechanism of school voucher. It was a school voucher tax credit. Um, and like you said, it would have capped the funding in the first year at $50 million. However, the bill did state that the legislature would review and evaluate whether the annual maximum amount is appropriate to address the needs of the program in 2026, so costs could have increased as soon as 2026 to meet demand. And we estimated that that could cost upwards of $170 million annually. Um, another thing to know is that another version of that bill was introduced at the end of the session, with an already increased cost cap of 70 million, so it increased from the 50 to the 70.
GAUDETTE: And May we know out of public schools are already underfunded. From your research and analysis at your organization, how would a voucher system or a school choice, I know they're different, but the same how? How in your opinion from from the data, would this impact Idaho public schools when we look at it from a financial standpoint?
ROBERTS: Um, right. So Idaho's ranked last in per pupil spending, um, in, in the country right now. So private school vouchers could would divert public funding to private schools that could be used to invest in the public education system. So diverting this funding delays investment opportunities that could be made in special education and school facilities. Um, like Julie was mentioning earlier, our rural schools really need to invest in, um, uh, their infrastructure more. Vouchers can cause a lot of harm to local school budgets. So especially in programs that tie voucher funding to a decrease in public school funding. Um, Julie touched on this a bit, too. If a public school loses ten students, they can't reduce their budgets by ten students. They can't cut ten seats off a school bus or reduce their heating bill by ten students. Those fixed costs to keep a building running remain no matter what. Um, those bills need to be paid. Um, in Arizona, a study found that a universal voucher program diverted an average $300,000 from every Arizona public school.
GAUDETTE: So Julie here is just as a as a parent, as a community member. This part that I struggle with when we talk about school choice is part of it is, is let's look at last session where this tax credit would have given, um, uh, every family $5,000 tax credit per child, and then they can use it however they choose, right. Whether they want to go to public school, charter school, home school, private school, $5,000 per student does not cover the cost of tuition at any private school, whether it's religious or not, in our state. So I sit here and wonder, well then who? If you don't have the ability to to make the choice from a financial standpoint to send your child to a private school, how are you still going to be able to send them to a private school if the amount of of whether it's a tax credit or a or funding is not going to cover the full cost of tuition. How do we answer that question?
YAMAMOTO: Well, the answer is, just as you pointed out, you won't and you will not. And I don't think that there really is that. Most people who are thinking it through know that. And they also know that probably a lot of those private schools will up their tuition so that they keep the same people that they have, because they know that if you were willing to pay, say, $9,000 before, you're still going to be willing to pay 9000 before. And so if the state will give you 5000, we're just going to increase the tuition by 5000. And that will just help our schools stay. That will help the private schools. I have nothing against private schools. And I understand that business model. That's probably capitalism at its best. But for kids it's capitalism at its worst. And that's the issue, is that when you really look at, uh, children being children being primary, which is part of this group, and say, what do the facts tell you? And the facts tell you that the money wise, it doesn't work, and it's not going to allow those kiddos with special needs to go to those schools. They don't they're not set up. Many of those schools aren't set up designed to address the needs of those special needs students. So what would that mean? Well, that would mean that we might need to come back and ask for more funding from the state, from a private school, so that they can meet those needs. You can just see how it snowballs. And so the reality is, I don't think anyone who is pushing this actually believes the rhetoric that it allows economically disadvantaged children to go to private schools. And if they do, Um, as the old saying goes, I have a bridge I can sell them to.
GAUDETTE: Well, and I think you bring up a good point, Julie, um, about children with any type of of special needs neurodivergence. I mean, there are private schools where you can send your child there, you can pay for an IEP, and you can do that, and you can send your child to a private school that happens here in Idaho. But with that said, in the public school system, you are not having to pay for that. And when we don't require that in our private schools, again, I am curious as to how proponents are saying, well, this opens up this opportunity for every child.
YAMAMOTO: Well, and to your point, you know, we we're using a number 8500, 400 and some dollars to say that that's what it costs per student in education to educate students in Idaho. And it's it's a faulty number at best, because it doesn't take into account federal dollars that have to come in. It doesn't take into account that it costs more to, uh, we had one special needs child alone that cost the district $30,000. One. So if you're taking all money from all those, if you're saying every child, this is what it costs to educate them. You're starting from the from wrong math from the beginning. And this idea that you can just put it all together, divide it by how many students, and then also say that you're saving that much for from the ones that are being homeschooled. I mean, when I talk to homeschool parents, most of them are adamant. We the government, we do not want your help. We did not ask for it. We are. We do not want it because we don't want the strings that come with it. We can, um, educate our children. They said like $500 a year was really reasonable and for some students, maybe more. But that's a far cry from $8,500 a year. And so to your point, it just, you know, I don't believe that we can make good on the rhetoric that is being espoused around tax credits or whatever else we want to call this, um, public dollars going to private or to into people's pocketbooks without any idea of how it's being spent or how whether what's the return on investment?
GAUDETTE: Patricia, as a board member, but as well as a community member, what would you say is your main question for lawmakers going into this next session when because we know they are going to get these bills in front of them. What would what what do you hope they consider when they look at these bills?
KEMPTHORNE: Well, just what we've talked about. Of course, we put the response, the fiscal responsibility on them and we should. And it seems so obvious that it's hard to understand why it even goes beyond that, because that should answer that question. But, um, the other thing I'm feeling here is look what we're doing to just the relationships between parents and schools and what we do having grown up here, our community, our schools, our public schools are such a key part of communities and especially in the rural communities. I mean, we have and I I'm it makes me very sad to think of what's happening as we have these discussions. Not that parents don't have the right and shouldn't put their children in the best place for them to get an education, but I think that can be in our public schools, and I don't know why parents are all there saying they want to leave and they have to do this. We're not having this conversation about the relationships, and it is about relationships. Um, so yes, can we add some fiscal accountability? I haven't heard that yet, so let's figure that out. And and going back to Icap's mission, how does this really benefit Idaho kids? And when we talk about Idaho kids, we mean all Idaho kids, all of them. And how could but how in the long run could it harm? And sometimes we don't look at the unintentional consequences. It all sounds really good, but we aren't really looking at what may happen. I also think I've read just lately that Illinois was the first state to sunset their program. They they didn't allow it to come back and it wasn't renewed. There's a real message there. They tried it in this and said no. And it's been hard to do in other states. I understand once it's they're getting rid of it is very difficult. That's an unintended consequence too, if it's destroying our budget.
GAUDETTE: Well, I want to thank all of you for this conversation. I do appreciate it. And as we move forward into the legislative session. Of course, we will continue to be discussing school choice here on Idaho matters. Of course, looking at the proponents and the opponents of this, as well as looking at the data behind all of this. Again, a big thank you to former Idaho representative and board member of Idaho Children and Primary Julie Yamamoto, as well as fellow board member and former Idaho First Lady Patricia Kempthorne and May Roberts, policy analyst at the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy. And that'll do it for this episode of Idaho Matters. Thanks so much for listening. And just a reminder, you can find all of our episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
