If Rod Gramer had done his homework, he would have known that his perspective was devoid of constitutional principles. He would have known that the Blaine Amendment is dead and no amount of political spin will change that. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear: once a state decides to subsidize private education, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious. Gramer’s reliance on a “strict” reading of the state constitution ignores the supremacy of the federal First Amendment, something he’d known if he had done his homework.
If Rod Gramer had done his homework, instead of yelling at clouds, he would have seen this train coming from a long way away. Idaho Business for Education (IBE), the organization he ran, couldn’t stop the full-speed locomotive of parents who desire real choice in education. The momentum has shifted from institutional protectionism to student-centered funding, and no amount of hand-wringing over “public funds for public schools” can mask the growing demand for flexibility.
And while he yells at clouds and complains about the way things are, he must, deep down, know that it was his own intransigence that helped get us to this point. The IBE failed to stop parents because parents prioritize their children’s outcomes over the preservation of a monolithic system.
And even though my own race for state superintendent did not result in my election, it placed the school choice issue squarely in the public debate. It catapulted the issue into the mainstream, forcing a conversation that people like Gramer tried for decades to suppress. School choice is now the victor, even if I personally was not. And because school choice won, parents and their children did too. The Idaho Supreme Court didn’t “eviscerate” the constitution; it simply acknowledged a reality that Gramer refuses to accept: the era of educational monopolies is over.
Being able to make a meaningful decision about where to send your child to be educated is fundamental. Parents know their children best after all. They don’t need bureaucrats or washed-up newsmen telling them what they should do. The era of the “one size fits all” factory model is crumbling, replaced by a system that respects the individual needs of the student rather than the convenience of the district office.
As the leader of Idaho’s first innovative charter school, I welcome the competition. Unlike our colleagues in Moscow, Kimberly, and elsewhere, we’re not afraid to compete. We welcome it. We crave it. Why? Because it was never about us. It was about parents and their children. We want parents to be in charge and so does the Idaho Supreme Court. Just as it should be.
If Gramer and those like him would stop yelling at the clouds, they might finally see the bright future Idaho’s parents are already building for their children – details at 10.
