Catching Up
I appreciate your patience in these busy times
It’s been a while! I have several drafts sitting on my Substack dashboard but I have not yet finished them. My new job keeps me busy during the day (and often into the evening) so by the time I have time to write I’m pretty tired.
But events march on, so I thought I would do a quick round up of what I have been thinking about. I will try to do some more in-depth posts soon.
Everyone is talking about Senate Bill 1038, the Freedom in Education Act. This deserves a long post of its own, so I’ll just share some of the basic details: The act would allow families to use about $6,000 per child of the tax money that would otherwise be allocated to public schools on their child’s behalf for alternative education programs.
I support this bill, along with my colleagues at Idaho Freedom Foundation, school choice crusader Corey DeAngelis, Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, EdChoice, Heritage Action, Citizens Alliance, Young Americans for Liberty, and hundreds of families throughout Idaho.
Opposing this bill are some strange bedfellows: The teachers’ unions, public school establishment, Superintendent Debbie Critchfield, and the Democrats are joined by hardcore homeschoolers and their organization Homeschool Idaho.
The former don’t want to let children out of the public school monopoly where they are force fed Marxist indoctrination, while the latter fear that SB1038 is a Trojan Horse that will lead to government control of private and homeschools in Idaho.
I will examine the arguments on both sides soon enough. Senators Tammy Nichols and Brian Lenney deserve commendation for their hard work to carry this bill to this point. SB1038 should be debated on the Senate floor Monday morning. In the meantime, listen to this message from Senator Scott Herndon:
Last week, my colleagues at IFF wrote an explosive article exposing how West Ada high school libraries were allowing teenagers to check out some of the most graphic and obscene books you can imagine. These books not only promote sexual promiscuity and deviant fetishes, but tell high school students to go online to talk about sex with strangers, consider becoming prostitutes, and reassure them that most sexually-transmitted infections are easily curable.
The pictures in this article are awful, so when I published it at idahofreedom.org I made sure to blur them, allowing users to click to reveal them if they wanted. Yet I had to endure the pictures myself, which only makes me that much more angry with our public school system that allows this to happen and the degenerate activists who are actively trying to put these materials into the hands of our children.
Bryan Hyde had a great video on Friday calling out the schools, activists, and media figures who are defending the indefensible:
With my new job taking me to Boise every day I have been less aware of the goings-on in my hometown of Eagle than I would like to be. The long-debated question about whether or not the Avimor development should become part of Eagle is finally coming to a head. The Planning and Zoning Committee listened to hours of citizen testimony over the last two months and ended up recommending the council reject annexation. The question will finally come before the council and the public next month, and I will work hard to bring you both sides of that issue as well.
Speaking of Eagle, there was some surprise earlier this month when the council voted not to renew the lease the city has with Eagle Senior Citizens Inc. If you listen to rabble-rousers on Facebook or Nextdoor, this action is proof that the mayor and council are misanthropes who seem to want to cause as much destruction of this community as possible. However, a few minutes of reading shows how that is not the case.
The City of Eagle has long leased the senior center building to a nonprofit called Eagle Senior Citizens Inc. for a token amount of one dollar per year. The city also managed the building and paid for utilities. The nonprofit handled activities, the thrift store, and the transportation that many senior citizens rely on. However, the nonprofit has not been managing itself very well. I have some inside knowledge here, as I briefly did some IT consulting for the Senior Center late last year. The article from the City of Eagle explains the basic situation, including the tragic death of a senior citizen under the care of the Center.
As the article explains, this action by the council should improve opportunities for Eagle’s seniors, not decrease them. The city will take over management of the Senior Center itself, which should lead to a better experience for everyone. If you’re interested in discussing the issue further, I recommend you attend the open forum at Eagle City Hall at noon on March 1st.
One thing that my first month at IFF has convinced me of more than ever is that our battle is here, not in Washington DC. I strongly advise you to turn off the national news and turn your focus instead to the Gem State. It is here that you stand the best chance of actually making a difference, and it is here where political decisions will have their biggest effects. If we cannot hold on to freedom in Idaho then it doesn’t matter what happens in the nation as a whole. The fight is here, so that is where our attention ought to be as well.
I am curious why the proponents of the ESA bill continue to ignore HSLDA senior counsel who advised against the bill. Claiming Homeschool Idaho is an outlier with hard core homeschoolers and the leftist groups is a little disingenuous. You would think the leading homeschool rights organization with over 35 years of experience would merit mention in the against group. Free legal advice turned down. There are better options that are truly conservative. 1038 is far from it.
I want to make just one final comment on S1038 bill (Education Savings Accounts, ESAs). I hope people will review CAREFULLY and with AN OPEN MIND what Homeschool Idaho is saying about the bill. While this bill is well-intentioned, many strong conservatives foresee the slippery slope to government overreach ( [sarcasm on] after all, government overreach clearly has NEVER happened before [sarcasm off] ).
The fact that Democrats / Liberals oppose S1038 does not automatically mean that Republicans / Conservatives should support it. Liberals and Conservatives oppose S1038 for entirely different reasons based on entirely different principles of government.
My suggestion for Senators is to send this bill back to the drawing board and reconsider the many valid ways this bill can be improved to accomplish its best goals while avoiding its worst pitfalls.
NOTE: I do not have kids, but I am a taxpayer who cares deeply about Idaho and its future (which includes today's kids).
Link to Bill Text: https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2023/legislation/S1038.pdf (Section 33-6604 - STATE CONTROL OVER NONPUBLIC SCHOOLS and Section 33-6605 PARENT OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE referenced in the below excerpt are on the page labeled as Page 5.)
Link to Homeschool Idaho's FAQs on ESAs: https://homeschoolidaho.org/esa-faq/
Link and excerpt from a 2/26/23 Open Letter to Idaho Senators explaining Homeschool Idaho's reasoning: https://mailchi.mp/homeschoolidaho/update-open-email-to-idaho-senators?e=972f4fc4a8
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Despite the co-sponsors of this bill’s assertion that homeschoolers do not understand the intent of this bill, which they claim is not intended for homeschoolers but is designed to address the “public school monopoly,” Homeschool Idaho remains unconvinced and fully opposed to S1038. The inclusion of homeschoolers as eligible recipients and of section 33-6604 is proof that they intend for, or expect, homeschoolers to utilize the program.
We believe that this bill will create a regulatory framework in a presently unregulated sphere: the private family education sphere. It can be used to progressively regulate homeschooling, even with the insertion of line 33-6604. The bill seeks to appoint an un-elected Parent Oversight Committee, and yet provides no clarity as to who these parents will be and how this committee will be formed. The devil is in the details! Indeed, provisions in the bill allow the Department of Education absolute control of eligibility, disbursement of funds, and approval of goods and services, and actually requires parents to enter into a contractual relationship with the DOE in order to participate.
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