2023 Legislative Wish List

Dear Legislators,

Just as you all are back for another legislative session, I’m back too with my personal civic duty of sharing a practicing educator’s perspective on what’s important for Idaho education with actual policy makers. If you are new, here’s me: I began as a new teacher in 2001, I’ve worked in two states, taught every grade level and nearly every type of Social Studies and English courses from 7th to 12th. I’ve been an educator for 20 years now and a school administrator for the last 10 years. You’ll get emails from me throughout the legislative session about education in Idaho because I feel it’s important to expose you to the perspective of a practicing educator like me who is passionate about providing quality education to students. I neither represent my school here nor my industry…just myself and my own viewpoint.

Some of you reply to some of my emails, and I’ve enjoyed the conversations we’ve had, but I understand that I’m offering you unsolicited advice precisely at a time when a lot of interests compete for your attention. I don’t expect much, but at the same time, if something I say in one of my emails opens one of you up to a viewpoint that you hadn’t considered before and helps bring some understanding to an issue surrounding education, that’s awesome and that’s why I do this. I thank you in advance for any time that you give me and my words here. I wish you the best of luck in creating good laws and policies for our state this year and also thank you for your service to our society.

Before I move on to my wish list I want to give a big thanks for allowing school districts to put their teachers on the same insurance plan most other state employees use. The passage of that act last year was the most generous thing I’ve ever seen Idaho legislators do for teachers. It’s also a game changer. I’ve had horrifically bad insurance for most of the 20 years I’ve been an educator, and for the first time I, and many other teachers throughout the state, can now affordably insure our families with good care plans. A hearty and sincere thanks here from someone who has been dramatically affected by this change.

Here is my 2023 Legislative Wish List, some of the issues I’d love to see addressed this year:

Wish 1: Bring Back the Books

I’ve written to legislators about this for years now: about 95% of our school districts phased out textbooks that went home with students several decades ago. I consider this the number one problem in our education system because it directly affects student engagement in 2 ways: you can’t assign homework if the students have nothing at home they can access to do that homework, and you have to pace your classroom to the slowest students in the room. With a record budget surplus and an additional $410 million set aside for education, this is an excellent time to consider how we are funding education and here’s my proposal: Set aside some percentage of whatever increase is given to schools and make a dedicated ‘Classroom Materials’ fund that can only be used to purchase classroom materials like books, computers, whiteboard markers, etc. Basics like textbooks are that important! These books don’t have to be the paper kind, either…right now we have a lot of Chromebooks and making a goal of a computer for each student and loading the textbooks onto those computers makes sense.

Wish 2: Make the Supplemental Levy System Supplemental Again

A little history lesson here: We’re always dead last in the nation for education funding, but the turning point was in 2006 when the ID Legislature changed the way it funded education and shortchanged schools by so much money that now we really should officially rename the ‘Supplemental’ levy system the ‘Operational’ levy system. This really needs to be fixed for a number of reasons: a.) Each year the operational levy system asks for and raises more money than the year before…but in most states, funding schools is customarily controlled by the State Legislature. b.) The Legislature created this problem, so it’s they that should fix it. c.) Because some levies pass and others don’t depending on the community, the operational levy system means that what is spent on student education increasingly varies based on zip code. This goes directly against the state constitutional mandate to provide a ‘fair and uniform’ education system throughout the state.

Wish 3: Stop Trying to Link ‘Teacher Accountability’ to Pay

While I’m definitely not against trying to measure school performance (we measure too little, actually), believe it or not, teachers are not the only determinant of what happens in schools, but we sure seem to think they are. 2 years ago the state finally started adding rungs to the career ladder for increased pay for veteran teachers, but they linked this pay to evaluation and ridiculous student performance measures, which will not improve student performance in any way but which will encourage watering down teacher evaluations so districts can earn the extra money. First, nearly 99% of Idaho’s teachers rank proficient or excellent according to their evaluations (so I would say we don’t need to encourage much growth here), and second, the more ridiculous teacher accountability measures we add to pay, the more red tape we create with little or nothing to show for it. Please, by all means increase teacher pay, but find better ways to measure schools that will actually improve them.

Wish 4: Measure and Publicize Advanced Enrollment in Schools

Perhaps the best thing that’s happened to our secondary education system in the last 20 years was the creation of the ‘Fast Forward’ or ‘Advanced Opportunities’ fund that grants money to students taking college credit or ‘overflow’ courses in high school. What the Advanced Opportunities Program has done was to bring the hit-and-miss offering of college-level courses in high school to the mainstream, and it’s dramatically expanded the number of those courses we are offering and the number of schools offering them. That’s a great thing...it’s led to a measurable increase of opportunities for students. Of course, what I say here is anecdotal, because we don’t measure advanced participation very well. The two things we measure very publicly-because the federal government tells us to-is how students do on the state achievement exams and how many graduate within 4 years. Why not add this standard? The cost is very little and the benefit of this would be that all high schools would have a vested interest in promoting enrollment in advanced courses. The amount of college credit earned in high school would go up and so would the academic rigor of courses our students take.


I’m always myopic in that the only political issue I seem to care about is education, but this should be an interesting year because we have so much cash. I hope we spend it well, and I sincerely hope we spend this money wisely and fix some issues that have plagued us for years. We have a system that works when those who work for the system put the needs of our society ahead of their own and care more about their community than partisan politics. Even though sometimes that doesn’t happen, sometimes it does, and that’s when the magic happens.


Sincerely,


Clayton Trehal




Notes/References:


Education 208: Still Missing, Textbooks

Idaho Ed News: The 2006 tax shift still divides Idaho leaders

Education 208: Why Idaho’s veteran teacher pay bill won’t improve education

Education 208: Advanced enrollment, a standard worth measuring