Idaho spends over $10,000 per student while seven in ten can’t read or do math—yet critics attack school choice instead of broken schools.
The following editorial ran in the Tuesday 9 Sept. 2025 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
I want to respond to many falsehoods in Marty Trillhaase’s recent editorial (“You’re Betting Your Tax Dollars on Idaho’s Education Experiment”). He portrays Idaho’s school choice law as a raid on public education funds. In reality it empowers parents, protects budgets, and puts parents—not bureaucrats—in charge.
Trillhaase insists the law will “siphon” $50 million from public schools. That’s patently false. House Bill 93 created a refundable tax credit—$5,000 per student, $7,500 for special-needs—that lets parents direct their education dollars. It doesn’t cut district budgets. In fact, Gov. Brad Little has increased K-12 funding nearly 60% since taking office.
Worse, his argument defends today’s Idaho system, where poor families are trapped in failing schools while wealthier families buy their way out. That’s the real inequity. Affluent parents already buy homes in costly neighborhoods where zoning lines guarantee access to higher-performing schools, or they write checks for private tuition. Families without that option are stuck, hoping their child is one of the few to reach proficiency.
This tax credit closes that gap. HB 93 prioritizes families under 300% of the federal poverty level and even allows advance payments so tuition and other qualified expenses can be covered up front. Critics say it benefits the wealthy, but the statute proves otherwise: it targets families most often trapped, not those already writing private-tuition checks.
The numbers tell the story. According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams, only 32% of Idaho fourth- and eighth-graders read proficiently. Just 41% of fourth-graders are proficient in math, with eighth-graders hardly better. Nearly seven in ten students are below grade level. This isn’t partisan—it’s federal data. Parents and taxpayers shouldn’t put up with that, and voters clearly agree. A February 11–12 poll found nearly three-in-five Idaho voters support the new tax credit law. Boise State’s 2024 survey showed 49% in favor of letting the funding follow students to private or religious schools, with 41% opposed. Parents want freedom, and the political class is finally catching up.
Unsurprisingly, Trillhaase defends the government monopoly, but Idaho’s own results prove that innovation works. In English Language Arts, nine of the top ten ISAT performers are charters. In math, all but two are charters. Charters spend less yet outperform. What’s the excuse for cash-flush districts that lag behind? Hint: it’s not the money.
Gov. Little has argued that Idaho can support strong public schools while also giving families real education freedom. Choice isn’t abandonment—it ensures each child has the best path to succeed. Parents should choose the school that fits their child, not accept a bureaucracy’s one-size-fits-all mold.
Trillhaase complains about accountability, but what’s more unaccountable than a system where seven in ten students can’t read or do math at grade level? Families already see the failure. The truest form of accountability is giving parents the power to walk away from schools that fail their children.
Trillhaase calls school choice an “education experiment.” But the real experiment has been graduating three-quarters of students who can’t handle math or English. That isn’t education; it’s malpractice. Idaho and the federal government currently supply $3.4 billion for 318,067 public school students—about $10,715 each—and more of that $3.4 billion goes to administration, operations, and programs rather than teachers in the classroom. And that figure doesn’t even include local property taxes.
Take Moscow School District: $35.6 million in annual revenue for 1,911 students, pushing the annual per-student cost to $18,655. Families see property taxes rise year after year, yet outcomes don’t improve. By contrast, $5,000 in a tax rebate is a bargain—parents win, and taxpayers win too. Compared to the alternatives, it was government schooling that was the real experiment—an experiment that has failed spectacularly.
Governor Little has said he makes decisions through one lens: creating the best opportunities for Idaho’s children and grandchildren to stay—or return. School choice fulfills that promise. Idaho cannot afford to lag behind when our own results prove the urgency for change.
Trillhaase defends failure factories that rob poor families of opportunity while the wealthy quietly exercise their freedom to choose. What he’s really protecting is the system itself—its budgets, bureaucracies, and special interests—not the educational outcomes of Idaho’s children. Property taxes keep rising to feed that system, but outcomes keep collapsing. That isn’t equity; it’s elitism dressed up as virtue. Enough. Idaho must put families first, not institutions.