Idaho’s Elections Are Critical In Continued Push For School Choice

We here at Accuracy in Media investigated the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Idaho schools two years ago.

The year before that, the governor had signed a law insisting that CRT not be taught in Idaho schools – it's divisive and even racist in and of itself. So, how well were the schools obeying the law?

As our investigation showed, they weren't. They simply renamed those concepts and carried on teaching them.

The big question then becomes, well, how do we stop them from doing that? How can we gain control of an unaccountable bureaucracy – which is what the public school districts have just proved themselves to be?

Well, there are basically two ways to deal with this. One is to try, again, the change the standards the bureaucracy can teach to. This is being tried:

…..teachers, administrators, college professors and community members from all over the state met for 12 hours in Joe R. Williams (JRW) Building at the end of October to revise the Idaho Social Studies Content Standards. ……

and:

“If we're going to have an issue, it's going to show up there. Our goal is to kind of weed out the publishers where there's a little bit more controversial speech around social justice and social reform ideas,” Arnold said. “We just want a social studies textbook that's going to teach our history without any biases on either side.”

So there is some pressure and it is working – a little. But given that the districts largely ignored an actual law that might not be enough.

There is another way, which is to free the schools from that centralized bureaucracy that then ignores state law.

Ahead of the Tuesday GOP primary, Nampa voters received a provocative mailer about a legislative candidate. The mailer featured a photo of a young girl standing behind rusted bars, frowning, wearing a yellow backpack and holding a notebook. “Kenny Wroten voted to leave students trapped in the wrong schools!” the attack ad read. The mailer slammed Wroten, an Idaho House member running for reelection, as a “liberal” legislator who rejected tax credits for families to send their children to private schools.

One way to do that is that if the current politicians won't vote for school vouchers – or school choice – then have some new politicians.

Or even to bring politics more directly into the running of school districts:

But unlike groups in other states, the Freedom Foundation has extended its reach by targeting school bond and levy elections, which have traditionally been local issues and are the main ways districts build and repair schools.

If there's a local problem – what's being taught in the local schools – then why shouldn't there be local politics to deal with this?

The larger issue is what is taught to our children in the schools we all pay for? What we as parents want our children to be taught? Or what a woke and progressive bureaucracy thinks should be taught? One way to make sure it's our wishes obeyed – they are our children and it is our money – is to try to take control of that bureaucracy. The other is to free the schools from that very same bureaucracy.

That the schools – in violation of state law – were teaching Critical Race Theory is bad in itself. But it's also a symptom, a proof perhaps, that the bureaucracy is out of control. And needs, just like an out-of-control dog, to be curbed. That is, when we see CRT being taught then we know that we need to either control the schools or free them. Idaho's getting there but it always is a long fight.

This article first appeared in Accuracy in Media. It is republished with permission.