Idaho has an obvious problem with its education system: It needs about $100 million more than what is currently spent on special-education services. While our state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction—Debbie Critchfield—has worked sincerely to try to eradicate this funding gap and deserves admiration, our state’s conservative approach to taxation ultimately hurts our ability to help those who need educational services in schools.

Recently, Chris Cargill, who heads the Mountain States Policy Center, published an opinion piece arguing that critics of Idaho’s education system rarely give specific numbers for how much more we ought to fund public schools: “Is it another $100 million? Another $500 million? A billion? At what point would education leaders say, ‘Yes, this is sufficient’?”

Cargill’s article is factually incorrect. Those who support public education here often provide exact numbers for the amount of funds that will make our state’s education system better. Ironically, the number they normally provide is, in fact, around $100 million.

The Office of Performance Evaluations says that Idaho has a spending gap of $82.2 million between what is spent on special education vs. what the state ought to spend on special education. This discrepancy comes about because, to quote the Office, “Idaho uses a census-based formula that assumes 6 [to] 5.5 percent of…students are in special education. This census-based formula only accounts for about half the actual number of students in special education.”

I’ve written before about how Idaho does not use funds for education as wisely as it could, this spending gap issue in particular being a problem. But, in spite of justified critiques of conservative educational spending in this state, I have not seen enough celebrations of recent attempts by Idaho lawmakers to make up for this spending gap when there should be.

In a 49-21 vote on March 24, 2026, the Idaho House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1288, which helps to create a fund for high-needs students. High-needs students are those who require, to quote Kevin Richert and Ryan Suppe, “full-time staff assistance or other support.” With the law, $5 million has been set aside for local educational agencies to apply for a reimbursement of, to quote the bill, “up to one hundred percent of costs above…$30,000, capped at…$80,000” when it comes to spending on individual students with serious needs.

This bill is a step in the right direction to make up for that roughly $100 million funding gap, and Republican state superintendent Debbie Critchfield was the primary figure behind the bill. Critchfield put out an article for Idaho Education News claiming that she is listening to Idahoans when it comes to what our state’s education system needs. To be frank, she seems to be sincerely interested in changing our education system for the better with Senate Bill 1288, which she steered through the Legislature. Notoriously, Idaho spends the least amount of money per student of any state with regard education, though admittedly our test scores are fine by national standards.

Critchfield’s decision to lead the way with more funding for education is valuable in Idaho.

But Idaho’s disinterest in using increased taxes to pay for its K-12 education system remains a problem. During the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers decreased income taxes, despite the fact that Idaho was liable to see increased revenue sources from its rapid growth. This resulted in what could have been a possible deficit—which is prohibited by the Idaho Constitution—and led to significant budget cuts for many state agencies and programs.

In December 2025, Critchfield had to back off from a $50 million request for funding for special education that she made in August 2025.Our Governor praises our state for practicing “fiscal discipline,” and I don’t think that raising taxes slightly to cover needed special-education services would violate that practice.

Our state’s conservative approach to taxation ultimately leads to our not being able to make up for a very obvious budgetary problem in education.