Find the Road Money in the Bloated Education Budget

Last year the Idaho Department of Education reported that taxpayers were charged over $2 billion dollars for K-12 public education. This indicated a rate of around $8,279 per student for 246,717 students. In contrast, Idaho’s private schools are charging around 60 percent of the public school rate or $4,800 per student per year.

The Albertson Foundation reports that private school academic performance is at or above the public school averages. This would suggest that private schools are over 70 percent more productive than public schools.

Why not give taxpayers a break and allow more students to attend Idaho’s highly productive private schools? If just 25 percent of Idaho’s public school students could attend private schools, over $214 million dollars would be available for new road construction.

Note to Butch: Be smart, don’t raise taxes to pay for new roads, increase choice in education. Idaho can have better education and better roads without raising more taxes.