Governor Brad Little told reporters that HB 93, which provides $50 million in taxpayer dollars to private and parochial schools and to home schoolers, did not have “enough accountability in it”.
Governor Little did not mention HB 93 obviously violates the Idaho Constitution’s Article IX, Section 5 SECTARIAN APPROPRIATIONS PROHIBITED, which states, in part:
Neither the legislature nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or moneys whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian or religious society, or for any sectarian or religious purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church, sectarian or religious denomination whatsoever. . .
Apparently looking for an excuse to veto HB 93, Governor Little conducted a public survey and received “thousands” of messages” with “86%” opposing HB 93, according to Idaho Education News.
Despite this overwhelming opposition, Governor Little signed HB 93 anyway.
Then, Governor Little made an interesting statement, perhaps to soften his true feelings about HB 93’s lack of accountability. The Governor decided to spread the “lack of accountability” to public schools, stating, “I don’t think there’s enough accountability in the money we give public schools either.”
Governor Little was partially correct in his assessment.
He should have been more specific. The public schools with the greatest lack of accountability are the publicly funded charter schools.
Idaho’s public charter schools enroll approximately 30,000 students in some eighty individual schools which are, by the Idaho Department of Education’s data files, grouped as individual school districts. You might ask, “How can that be?”
Charter schools are much like “regular” school districts governed by boards which meet regularly, make policy decisions, employ professional and non-professional employees, hire lawyers, build or rent facilities, and adopt budgets.
If it walks and sounds like a school district, it’s a school district.
So why do I narrow Governor Little’s “lack of accountability” to Idaho’s public charter schools?
What is accountability? At its core, accountability is being responsible to those who provide the money. And, like “regular” public school districts, Idaho’s public charter school districts get their money from you, the Idaho taxpayer.
Idaho taxpayers should want to know what they are paying for. They should want the opportunity to approve, or, at the very least, comment and debate on how their tax money is being spent.
And, finally, Idaho taxpayers should want the right to change how their money is spent through free and public elections of policy makers—that’s exactly what the Idaho taxpayer gets when it comes to “regular” school districts—the taxpayers have the right to elect, and recall, members of the “regular” school district board of trustees.
In other words, Idaho’s “regular” public school districts are accountable to the Idaho taxpayer through the public election process.
But that’s not the case with Idaho’s public charter schools.
According to the ORIGINAL CHARTERS for each public charter school district, their boards ARE NOT PUBLICLY ELECTED.
By the way, you can’t find original charters at the Idaho Charter School Commission. You must search each public charter school district’s website for them.
What you will find in the “Governance” section of those original charters is language stating board members (called directors instead of trustees) are “recruited” or “appointed” or “elected” by existing charter founders and boards.
When I read the original charters for membership numbers, I found the range is 3 to 15, with the most common being either 5 to 7 or 5 to 9. I therefore estimated the total number of public charter board members is 700.
Why is that number important to know?
Because those 700 (+/-) public charter board members are overseeing the expenditure of OVER $300 MILLION taxpayer dollars per year, without any PUBLIC ELECTION ACCOUNTABILITY.
Idaho taxpayers should know public charter school districts identify, in their approved charters, maps of their “service area” or “target area” within their community. In the law, it’s known as a “compact and contiguous area.”
This means, public charter school districts are enrolling students in your community, and spending your tax dollars, with minimum public disclosure.
Moreover, the students in the charter school district “service areas” and “target areas” do not reflect the community at large. Why not?
Because, unlike a “regular” school district, each public charter school has a SPECIFIC MISSION, a SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONAL FOCUS. Unless you want your child to be exposed to a mission and specific focus, you won’t apply for enrollment in a public charter school.
According to the Idaho Public Charter School Commission, those “instructional focus areas” include the following (partial list) that parents must learn more about before they decide to enroll their child in a public charter school:
Classical
College prep
Dual-language
STEM
Harbor
STEAM (yes, STEAM)
Blended learning
Postsecondary
International Baccalaureate
Waldorf
Project based
Montessori
Virtual
7 Habits of Leadership
Waldorf
Alternative
Public charter schools have existed in Idaho since 1998 when the initial legislation was signed into law by Governor Phil Batt.
The supporting discussion, as I recall it, centered on the idea public charter schools would be exempt from many of the rules and requirements of regular public schools, thereby enabling charter schools to become bastions of creativity and innovation.
Successful public charter schools would, the promoters and legislators promised, develop new programs for exporting to all Idaho schools.
My recollection is verified by Terry Ryan and Julie Hahn, in Shackled Education Pioneers, Idaho’s Public Charter Schools at 20. They stated:
When launched in 1998, the legislative intent of the state’s charter school program was “to serve as learning laboratories with hope that successes could potentially be applied throughout the larger public education system.”
In this way, public charter schools would truly be an important component of what our state founders described as a system of uniform and thorough free common schools (Idaho Constitution, Article IX, Section 1).
The many testimonials presented to the 1997 Interim Committee on Charter Schools include widespread support from school boards, superintendents, the Idaho Education Association, the Idaho Association of School Administrators, parents and teachers.
Why did so many educators support the public charter school proposal?
Because the creation of public charter schools depended on local school district support because it gave local districts CONTROL over charter schools to directly export learning innovations to local schools.
As Interim Committee co-chair Senator Gary Schroeder told everyone, charter schools will “enhance the public school system. We are not looking for alternatives or ways to tear the public school system apart.”
THE PROMISES OF SAFEGUARDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM AND LOCAL CONTROL WERE NOT KEPT.
Instead, Idaho’s public charter laws have been modified, almost annually, to move charter schools as far away from its original purpose as possible.
According to a 2013 report from the Office of Performance Evaluation (OPE), the “public charter school laws have been amended 84 times since 1998.”
I reviewed statutory changes made after 2013. I found many more revisions were approved, all favorable to public charter schools, bringing the total revisions to 113.
What does this mean?
First, and foremost, it means public charter schools have become a favorite child of the Idaho Legislature to the point where the public charter school lobby can almost get whatever changes they want. For example, charter school administrators do not have to meet the same professional standards as “regular” school administrators, public charter boards do not have to negotiate with teachers, and the list goes on.
The most recent cry for yet another revision appeared in the Idaho Education News on March 2, 2025, when public charter school administrator Tony Bonuccelli bemoaned “the strain on resources caused by special education students” and the fact that public charter schools are “unable to impose tax levies.”
Bonuccelli failed to mention, or understand, that public charter schools receive EXACTLY THE SAME TAXPAYER DOLLARS as a “regular” public school district through the state distribution formula which includes a special education factor and their share of all special legislative appropriations.
Bonuccelli also failed to mention that public charter schools DO RECEIVE TAXPAYER FACILITY DOLLARS, thanks to a special law (Idaho Code 33-5208) that generates facility money to public charter school districts on the basis of passage of “regular school district” bond measures.
The law states public charter school facility payments are “calculated as a percentage (not less than 30% and no greater than 50%) of the statewide average amount of bond and plant facility funds levied per student by Idaho school districts.
According to the Idaho State Department of Education, public charter schools received $8 million in school facility money in 2023-24.
Bonuccelli may not want what he wishes for in terms of getting tax levy authority for public charter schools. Why?
Because it would require public charter schools to become taxing districts, and it would, therefore, require public accountability. ALL QUALIFIED VOTERS RESIDING WITHIN THE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL DISTRICT’s “compact and contiguous area” would be entitled to vote on charter bond and plant levies, not just a handful of public charter school founders, employees, and parents.
Bonucelli is correct on two things, first—the Idaho Legislature has not appropriated enough money to public schools, despite what the Governor and Legislative leadership claim.
And secondly—Idaho’s public charter school law does require revision.
Only this time, the first revision step MUST REQUIRE PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY for Idaho’s public charter school districts. How?
THROUGH OPEN, PUBLIC ELECTIONS OF ALL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS wherein any qualified voter can cast a ballot.
That would certainly be a first step in Governor Little’s interest in public school accountability.
