Voices

Applaud efforts that make schools better.

TFA is a step toward the de-professionalization of the teaching profession. We can do better. Every child with a disability deserves a world-class education. TFA does not fulfill this mandate, especially for Idaho’s special education students.

We have to end this cycle where students perform well in K-12, receive a high school diploma, and then just three months later too many of these same students realize they are woefully unprepared for the real world.

Poland embraced bold reforms to its education system in the 1990s that included creating more rigorous national standards, allowing the creation of private schools, crafting better systems for identifying struggling students and providing support for new teachers.

The Treasure Valley Education Partnership is cultivating a unique partnership to minimize challenges and maximize opportunities for Idaho children to succeed beyond high school. It’s about advancing a world-class education system that leads all students to their career of choice.

The task force’s recommendations are not what we need, nor what Idaho schoolchildren deserve. The proposal to dump more money into Idaho schools does nothing to improve or reform the system.

But we shouldn’t get too hung up on the nature of the goal. It doesn’t mean the majority of Idahoans are expected to have a degree from a four-year university. The education task force that developed the recommendation included skill training and vocational certificates in the figure.

These smaller populated and more isolated schools have reason to find common cause. The more they do, the more students in both are likely to benefit, and with them the larger community.

We need to encourage young people to open as many doors as possible and a college education is one powerful way to do just that. The facts show every dollar spent on education returns many more.