Ahead of the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers in Idaho are reportedly considering various plans to expand education choice options in the Gem State.
Every state will design a plan that is different. In some states, Education Savings Accounts work well to help children get the best education possible. Other states may look toward tax credits or tax credit scholarships.
The number of states providing parents and students with the option for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), education choice tax credits, or an education tax scholarship has now grown to 29. Several states are also in the process of expanding their existing education choice programs to cover even more students. Here is the current map of the 29 states with these education choice options:
The experience of other states gives lawmakers a roadmap for what is possible in the education choice arena.
Perhaps the simplest education choice solution is a refundable tax credit. Legal challenges brought against tax credits have rarely had success because plaintiffs cannot show any personal injury, and they involve personal income – not government money.
Legislators can tailor programs to be as broad or restrictive as political expediency demands, but from a policy standpoint, programs that allow the greatest number of parents the greatest amount of educational choice will create the best outcomes.
Ideally, Idaho legislators should be aiming for a plan that includes the following:
Simplicity - A program that is easy to understand for parents, educators and lawmakers, and does not require a bureaucracy to administer.
Parental control - Place as much of the decision-making power as possible with parents.
Universal participation - No limitations on student participation based on income or zip code.
Flexibility - Avoid imposing additional rules and regulations on private schools.
Education choice levels the playing field between schools and allows parents to act as a check on a system that is otherwise disposed to monopolistic pitfalls.
Article 9, §1 of the Idaho Constitution creates a duty to “establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.” But nothing in the state constitution prevents the legislature from supplementing that duty or requires parents to send their child to a government school. The constitution simply creates a baseline.
As the West Virginia Supreme Court recently ruled, the legislature can do “both of these things.”
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