This month, taxpayers in Texas found out how many students receiving $1 billion in private education subsidies were already homeschooled or enrolled in a private school: 70%. 

Taxpayers in Idaho are still waiting to get that number from a similar private school choice program that serves nearly nine and a half times fewer students, costs $950 million less and was enacted two months earlier. 

And it’s not for lack of trying. 

Between February and July, the Idaho State Tax Commission received seven public records requests related to the Parental Choice Tax Credit. A college faculty member, a hobbyist data analyst, a homeschool advocate, a former public school superintendent and two journalists filed requests seeking data that would shed light on who’s benefitting from the $50 million-a-year taxpayer-funded program. 

Four of those requests — including two from Idaho Education News — sought the number of tax-credit recipients who previously attended a public school. This data would test a selling point of the program: that it helps students who couldn’t otherwise afford a private education. 

That tally doesn’t include unofficial requests. Democratic lawmakers, who asked for data in March, weren’t included in a tracking sheet of records requests obtained by EdNews. 

Nearly all of the requests were denied.

What has the commission released?

It’s been almost a year and a half since the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Brad Little enacted House Bill 93, creating the Parental Choice Tax Credit and directing the Tax Commission to administer the program.

It’s been four months since the commission closed the first round of applications and issued more than $42 million in awards. The second round closed last month. 

So far, the Tax Commission has released two data points on the program’s rollout: the total dollar amount that’s been awarded and the percentage of recipients whose income was above or below 300% of the federal poverty level. 

Meanwhile, officials at the commission have cited privacy laws to deny requests for additional data. The information that can be released to the public isn’t ready yet because computer systems haven’t been programmed to generate reports, they say, and applications are still being processed.

“It’s not like an Excel spreadsheet where you can just go and gather the data and hit print,” Julie Eavenson, public information director for the Tax Commission, told EdNews by phone last month. “We don’t have a lot of resources to devote to this.”

But some of the data that Idahoans requested in recent months isn’t being collected at all, according to commission responses to records requests.

Here’s who has asked for data, what they asked for and how the commission responded: 

Previous enrollment status

Stuart Anderson, an education faculty member at Brigham Young University-Idaho, was preparing for a campus debate on school choice when he asked the Tax Commission for the number of tax-credit recipients who were previously enrolled in private school. 

Anderson — who stressed that he was not speaking on behalf of BYU-Idaho — told EdNews that about 140 students attended the debate, which featured two professors on each side of the argument for spending public funds on private education.

“We showed our students, who are mainly in education, that this is a complex issue,” he said. “Here are the challenges. Here are the pros. Here are the cons to this.”

The Tax Commission denied Anderson’s records request. “The information you’re requesting is not being collected or reported on through the Idaho Parental Tax Credit Program,” Eavenson wrote to Anderson on April 13.

Anderson’s request sought to shed light on who was benefitting from the program. HB 93 supporters argued that it would open doors for students who couldn’t otherwise afford an education outside the public school system.

But in other states with similar private school choice programs, most recipients weren’t attending public schools before applying for state subsidies. In Arizona, nearly 70% of education savings account recipients in the first year were already in a private setting. 

Don Coberly, the former superintendent of the Boise School District, got a similar response from the Tax Commission when he asked for the same figures. A critic of private school choice, Coberly said he planned to write an article about what the data showed. 

“One of the things that’s always been said about the voucher movement is it’s kids escaping failing schools,” he said. “I kind of wanted to know, are they really coming from public schools, or are they already enrolled (in private schools)?” 

Coberly said this data could be useful to public school leaders, if it showed that large numbers of students are fleeing public schools for private options. “That’s good information for the folks who are running those schools to know.” 

Geographic information

Tucker Anderson — no relation to Stuart — is a hobbyist researcher who creates data visualizations and often shares his work in social media discussions about Idaho politics. 

Anderson asked the Tax Commission for aggregate geographic data, like the home ZIP codes that tax-credit recipients listed on their applications. He wanted to see whether recipients were primarily in urban or rural areas. Anderson previously made an illustration that showed private schools are concentrated in larger cities and rural towns have few choices outside the public system. 

“It’s public information that we should be able to pull,” he said of the geographic information on the tax-credit applications.

The commission also denied Anderson’s request. “The information you’re requesting is not being aggregated or produced in any form at this time,” Eavenson told him. 

Eavenson noted that the Tax Commission will provide a report “containing geographic information” to Gov. Brad Little and the Legislature in 2027. 

HB 93 directed the commission to compile a report with eight data points on the program’s rollout, including the “geographic area” of recipients. But the legislation wasn’t specific about how detailed the information should be.

Income data

HB 93 didn’t require the commission to compile income data beyond the number of recipients who qualified for priority access by earning 300% or below the federal poverty level. 

During the first application period, 55% of applicants were above the poverty threshold, while 45% were below it.

Melissa Nash, a member of Homeschool Idaho’s board of directors, asked the commission for additional income data, expecting it would show that wealthier families were the primary beneficiaries. Her request sought aggregate data on tax credit recipients broken down by income tax bracket, among other variables. 

While homeschoolers are eligible for the tax credit, Homeschool Idaho staunchly opposed HB 93. “We feel like partnerships between public and private entities result in private entities being regulated more by the government,” Nash told EdNews. “We wanted to discourage that public-private partnership.”

The commission also denied Nash’s request. 

“This program is being implemented through the income tax system, which means we must follow strict state and federal confidentiality laws,” Eavenson wrote in response to Nash’s request. “We are still in the application phase and actively developing the program, so not all data has been compiled into reportable formats.”

The Tax Commission fulfilled one records request related to the tax credit. Audrey Dutton, a reporter at ProPublica, asked for all statistics and reports related to the tax credit as of March 19. The commission handed over the number of applications and dollar amounts — data the agency later published online. 

Eavenson told EdNews last week that the commission’s focus is on processing applications. “We’re still working on that,” she said by email. 

As of Aug. 17, the commission has received 7,055 applications covering 12,561 students.