March 25, 2023 • 23 mins
This episode’s topic is Week 10 of the 2023 legislative session. With adjournment likely next week, lawmakers are done with committee hearings and working through a long roster of legislation so they can go home. The Idaho Legislature is winding down its business for 2023 and, absent any last-minute surprises, this session’s outcomes for students, educators and public education promise to be historic. Those bills include pay raises for significant pay raises for educators — IEA members’ top priority for this year — and tellingly do not include any voucher bills.
Joining today’s conversation are IEA Political Director Chris Parri, IEA Associate Executive Director Matt Compton and IEA Executive Director Paul Stark
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Mike Journee (00:14):
Welcome to Idaho Education Association's HOTLINE
podcast, a weekly discussionabout what's happening at the
Idaho legislature on publiceducation, and the policy
priorities of ies members, iemembers of public school
educators from all over thestate. They're Idaho's most
important education experts, andthey use their influence to
fight for a free quality andequitable public education for
every student in the state. I'mMike journee, communications
(00:36):
director at the IEA and I'll beyour host for this episode of
hotline. Today's topic is Week10 of the 2023 legislative
session. With adjournment likelynext week, lawmakers are done
with committee hearings andworking through a long roster of
legislation so they can go home.
Those bills include significantpay raises for educators IEA
members top priority for theyear, and tellingly do not
include any voucher legislation.
(01:00):
joining me for today'sconversation, our IEA political
director Chris Perry, AssociateExecutive Director Matt Compton
and Executive Director Paulstart.
Well, gentlemen, thanks forbeing here today for a quick
review of what's been happeningat the lobby of legislature.
We're in week 10 of the session.
And looks like things arewrapping up, we have the
committee's are all finishedmeeting there. They're trying to
(01:22):
they're sprinting through billson this on both House and Senate
floors. Things are movingforward. And there's a lot going
on. But man, it was reallyshaping up to be a really strong
session, perhaps strong as aweak word for that, for public
education.
(01:43):
Matt Compton, we have, we havebills coming forward on salaries
for educators that are there,and they're waiting for four
votes. As we record this, itsounds like this afternoon,
there might be a vote in theHouse, or I'm sorry, in the
Senate on that one of thosebills. So let's talk a little
bit about those.
Matt Compton (02:04):
So the public school budgets are made up of
seven different appropriations.
Three of them are the ones thatwe're tracking in it deals with
teacher pay, and classified pay.
And then some of the centralservices that has discretionary
money in it. They've all beenassigned bill numbers, as of
yesterday, and typically sessionafter session, these are the
(02:26):
last bills that are consideredby the legislature, they're
called go home bills. And ittypically the the legislature
will take these up as kind ofthe final measure. And it's
because public education makesup well over 50% of the state's
budget. And so they put a lot ofconsideration into it. But we
anticipate that the Senate willvote to approve these later this
(02:50):
afternoon. And then likelyMonday, Tuesday of next week,
the House will take them up. Thereason that I feel so confident
about this is because all ofthose bills came out of J fac
the Joint Finance andappropriations committee,
overwhelmingly with support, andthere just hasn't been a lot of
indication that there's going tobe folks who raise a fuss about
(03:11):
this, there's obviously going tobe those individuals who have
voted against everyappropriation this year. And
they will be held to account onthat. But those folks, folks who
vote in favor of it, we'll get around of applause and thank you
from educators from across thestate.
Mike Journee (03:26):
Yeah, that's right. And Paul, now this was
one of the governor's toppriorities for the legislative
session. And, and it's gonepretty well. I think when our
members, a good chunk of ourmembers, get together Delegate
Assembly in April, they're gonnathere's gonna be a lot to
celebrate, I think they're gonnabe really happy about what's
coming through in the salaryrealm. And so there's gonna be
(03:47):
celebration.
Paul Stark (03:48):
Yeah, there's lots of so many loads and loads. This
has been one for the recordbooks, not only what we were
able to achieve, but what didn'thappen is equally as important.
So I think there's, there's lotsto celebrate, and it should give
educators a lot more confidencein public education in Idaho.
Mike Journee (04:06):
Yeah. Right. So, Chris, one of the things that
didn't happen this year, therewere seven voucher bills that
came forward, probably a newrecord, I would imagine. And the
influence of our members hasbeen key not only in getting
salaries to the point where wethink that they're going to be
going through pretty easily, butbut they've been key in
(04:27):
defeating all seven of thesebills in one way or another. We
had three come forward thisweek. Are well have action taken
on this week. Tell us a littleabout those three bills and and
what happened with them?
Chris Parri (04:37):
Sure. And first, I don't mean to correct you, Mike,
but I think it's week 10,000 ofthe legislative session. And
yes, three ESA voucher billskind of popped their heads up
this week in different kinds offorms, each of them kind of
interesting in their own right.
So the first one was Senate Bill1161, which was sponsored by
Senator den Hartog,
Mike Journee (04:58):
which we've talked about a couple times.
Chris Parri (04:59):
Yeah. This is the one that would have taken about
half of the funding forempowering parents and turned
the empowering, empoweringparents grant system which
provides micro grants toparents, whether their public
school parents, private school,parents, homeschool parents, to
invest in education, educationalmaterials in the home. This is
(05:19):
one that we got behind last yearrecognizing that that
investments in the home arevaluable and support students.
However, the bill sponsors thisyear, turned back around and
wanted to undermine that programby adding vouchers into it
basically. So we fought againstthat one pretty hard. It did
pass the Senate floor last weekon a vote of 19 in favor 15
(05:43):
against and one absent. But asit was headed to the House
Education Committee, it becamepretty clear that this bill had
no path forward either throughthe House Education Committee or
potentially even on the Housefloor, if even if it didn't make
it out of the committee. So thebill sponsors pulled it ahead of
that hearing, kind ofmercifully.
(06:05):
And then there were the twoother ones one was put forward
by Representative Hawkins.
And that one didn't last toolong. It was put on the house
revenue, revenue and taxationcommittee agenda. And then
pretty quickly, just it wasn'teven heard for a print hearing.
So that one ended up prettyquick. And then the last one is
one sponsored by Senator BenAdams, which is a tuition tax
(06:30):
credit voucher. Basically, youwould spend money on private
school tuition, and thenmyouwould retroactively get that tax
credit based on not being inpublic school
the next year, so another onethat we lobbied a bit on and
have worked against and, to behonest, this one was at the 11th
hour and just didn't have achance to ever be heard by that
(06:52):
committee. So we just ran out oftime on that one.
Matt Compton (06:55):
I think it's really important to to emphasize
Mike Journee (06:55):
And there are several key lawmakers involved
to punctuate how the quoteunquote, school choice movement
this this year was supposed tobe kind of a slam dunk across
the country. I was reading a FoxNews article from mid February.
And it says the school choicerevolution is going pedal to the
(07:17):
metal setting the stage forpossibly the best year in US
history for education,educational empowerment. And
they talked about how there werelike over 50 pieces of
legislation nationwide, andstates like Arkansas, Indiana,
Idaho, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio,Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas,
and Wyoming. We're all adoptingsome kind of school choice or
(07:38):
universal voucher program. Butwhat I'd like to do is, you get
to carve out Idaho off thatlist, because we are one of the
in that as well. And of course,our members coming and talking
very few states that were ableto weather this assault on
public education. While otherstates had governors like
Governor Abbott in Texas orGovernor Sanders Huckabee in
Arkansas, who were strongadvocates. We here at home
(08:01):
actually had a strong advocatefor public education in Governor
Brad little who was steadfastand put forth a budget in his
State of the State thatrecognize the importance of
public schools here in Idaho.
with members with lawmakersduring lobby day and on all the
(08:21):
local lobby days that we've hadthroughout the year. Hundreds
and hundreds of conversationswith lawmakers about about pay
about vouchers is shaping up tobe a really great barring any
surprises shaping up to be oneof the best sessions that I can
remember in the 20 years thatI've been watching the
legislature.
Chris Parri (08:41):
So yeah, all the way from the all the way from
the primary elections in 2022,to the general elections in
2022, to the ledge, thislegislative session, there's a
through line of IEA memberstaking action, to support pro
education candidates, and thenpro education policy and to kill
bad policy. And it's prettyincredible to take that all
(09:02):
three of those major events as awhole and look at how it all
kind of fit together to lead tothis such a successful
legislative session. And not tomention also the special session
in September, which was alsokind of a an act of political
genius for public schools.
Matt Compton (09:16):
I was I was thinking that Chris and I were
marveling this this morningabout, we would send out a text
message to members saying reachout to your lawmakers and within
an hour or two hours, we wouldhave 100 to 250 responses in in
just a matter of, of hours. Andit's those voices. It's those
communications. It's thoserelationships that were
developed during Lobby Day. Andthat at the local lobby days
(09:39):
that had been so effectiveduring this legislative session.
Yeah. And educators have so muchfree time, right? Yeah. And
these are all personalizedemails. We always emphasize that
in all of our online actions,like make sure you're you're
personalizing your emails, wedon't want duplicates. We don't
want form emails, and they'retaking time out of their day to
to share their why Yeah, sharingtheir why this is why it's
important for me, my students inmy class, some of my colleagues,
(10:01):
and it's really, reallyeffective.
Chris Parri (10:03):
Awesome.
Mike Journee (10:05):
Well, Paul, there was another bill that came
forward this week there anotherlibrary bill that was out there
that's been been happening inand there was some really
interesting testimony aroundthat from people who take an
interest in education policy.
And in particular, you notedthe, the Idaho Freedom
Foundation and a little bit of ahide-the-ball game that they
(10:26):
might be playing with, with withthe way that they testify on
these different bills.
Paul Stark (10:32):
Yeah, a little bit of duplicity is what I'd call
it, because there was a billthat came up that had to do with
enabling filters, contentfilters for web browsers, on
cell phones when they'reactivated. And in that
situation, the Idaho freedomFoundation's Communication
Director stood up, and basicallysaid, you know, we shouldn't
have the government doing this,you know, this is the parents
responsibility, which, you know,in some part is true, you know,
(10:55):
the parents do play a role inobviously, in their children's
actions and what what they dowith content they receive, but
it's the direct opposite of whatthey've said about this library
bill, the library bills are,well publicized about, you know,
content restrictions. Andstrangely, the Idaho Freedom
Foundation in those situations,desperately wanted the
(11:16):
government to come in andreplace the parent and, and make
the decisions about what contentcould be involved. So the
duplicity is, is really frankly,very interesting. But the
library bill, we hope, it's,it's pending as we sat on the on
the 14th order, and we'll seewhere it ends up. But, you know,
(11:36):
it's just one of these neverending culture wars that, you
know, they're trying to findleverage. It's interesting that
a couple years ago, it was allabout critical race theory and
all about what happening inpublic schools, and the
lieutenant governor and otherpeople had these hearings, which
found nothing, absolutelynothing well, that they figured
out that well is kind of dry.
And so now they're going afterhigher ed, and it's all about
(11:56):
diversity and inclusion, highered and, and the boogeyman that
they see all around them, nevermaterializes, because here in
Idaho are sensible, and welisten to our communities and
things aren't what they're beingrepresented.
Matt Compton (12:13):
I've said this before. And I'll continue to say
it that these campaigns thatserve to discredit public
schools are are all part of therationalization for things like
vouchers that, that theinstitutions that we trust
Public Schools libraries, havebecome some kind of boogeyman
that's indoctrinating studentsor exposing them to harmful
(12:35):
materials. And what that'ssupposed to do is make the
public lose trust, and thendivest their tax dollars from
that and send it to private orparochial schools. And in states
across the country, it's worked.
But at this point, we've beenable to stave off those those
assaults and threats. Becausewe're kind of speaking
(12:56):
rationally we have become therational oasis in in Idaho
politics where, as long as as wemaintain our truth, and
integrity, the both the peopleand lawmakers listen and
respect.
Chris Parri (13:14):
And there's, I think there's a huge missing
piece of the calculation on theyou know, the side of the people
pushing vouchers and, you know,pushing vouchers with one side
of their mouth, and then thesecrazy conspiracy theories with
the other side of their mouthall working together to kind of
privatize public education. Themiscalculation was that there
would be no blowback on them,that their credibility would be
(13:35):
stellar throughout this wholeprocess. But the harder they
attack public schools, theclearer it becomes that these
folks are not out to supportpeople of Idaho, and not in a
trusted ally when it comes tolegislation. So you watch their
influence Wayne and Wayne andmore and more educators or
legislators come out to kind ofstand up for public schools and
(13:57):
stand against the kind ofinflammatory rhetoric and
straight up lies put out by thatside. So when you watch the
debate that takes place, both incommittee and on the on the
House or Senate floor, you'restarting to see a real divide,
particularly in the Republicanparty where people are getting a
little punchy. And they'rethey're taking truth back. While
(14:18):
I see that they might be losinga little bit of the decorum.
Folks are frustrated by theoutlandish things that people on
kind of the alt right are sayingeven on the Senate floor, where
they're being called, called tothe floor for the comments that
they're making, and theircolleagues are just not having
any of it.
Paul Stark (14:35):
If I can add one last thing I know we've been
talking about this, but we seeover and over again in polling
and in really every evidencewe'll get that public, local
public school teachers andeducators are trusted. Their
communities actually loves theirlocal schools, and they do trust
their local educators. Soanybody listening to this, this
is all kind of this legislativefight but we should understand
(14:58):
at the local level oOurCommunities support our schools.
And we've seen that in thepassage of levies and bonds, we
see that in, you know, justpulling about opinions, about
educators. And so I don't thinkanybody should fret at the local
level, you're still very belovedby your local community.
Mike Journee (15:19):
So I wanted to touch really quickly on, you
know, there have been a coupleof bills come forward this year
in relation to school elections.
And the elections that are heldin various months throughout the
year. We just had an election inMarch, and there's another one
coming up in May. And we'vealready got members in at least
(15:39):
one major, one major local,looking at that, and really
drilling down and trying to toovercome a loss in the March
election to get funding for ourschools. Again, the fact that we
have to have these elections atall speaks volumes about how
public education is funded inthe state. But but our members
(16:02):
are really rallying. It soundslike up in quarter lane. Are
these happening, and we've got anumber of other ones on the on
the ballot. Right, Chris?
Chris Parri (16:11):
You bet. Yeah. So the quarter, Elaine coralayne
ran two levees in March. Andunfortunately, both of them
failed. But they're coming backin May with a different ask just
one Levy. And yeah, the thelocal members up there are doing
a great job activating membersand allies in the community and
organizing to make sure that,you know, we're knocking doors
(16:32):
and making phone calls and doingall the work that it would take
to to get something like thisacross the line, because it is a
dire situation up there in NorthIdaho. It's quarter lane, you
know, Lakeland as well.
And a few other I'm sure we'llsee, we'll see a number of
districts that Oh, definitelylost in March, probably coming
back and re And then, of course,you know, our members will be be
(16:53):
heavily involved in those intheir in their local in their
local areas.
Mike Journee (16:57):
And then, of course, we're looking forward in
November to school boardelections and things and they
get involved in those as well.
Chris Parri (17:04):
So yeah, I mean, I think for any any members
listening, and Paul has beenreally good about pointing this
out as well that since theschool districts themselves
can't advocate much for theselevies and bonds, it really does
fall to the to the localassociation in these areas to
take it upon themselves to dothe the work of persuasion,
basically the like the here'swhy this is valuable, you know,
(17:27):
not just the kind of upfrontfact stuff, but also the the
persuasive language that youneed to do and get on doors and
all the other stuff, it kind ofdoes fall to the teachers.
Matt Compton (17:36):
And the reason that we saw the failure up and
failures up in north Idaho isthat you have this active
Republican Central Committeethat notably has endorsed white
nationalists in the past thatare actively trying to, to, to
defund public schools. And thenwhen the the school says, if we
don't pass the levy, we're notgoing to be able to have sports,
(17:59):
that are kind of whining andcrying that the football team or
the basketball team or thewrestling team or the
cheerleading squad isn't goingto be funded. And these are the
these are the real repercussionsfor when you want to defund
schools is that the first thingthat's going to go are the
extracurriculars that are sopopular in the community. And I
(18:20):
look forward to our members inthese, these districts
highlighting those losses.
Chris Parri (18:26):
It's interesting, because that central committee
up there, too, has endorsed somelevies and those ones can fail
too. And I think what we'reseeing is a loss of control,
kind of across the board on thatside of things, that they've
unleashed this kind of whirlwindof lies and paranoia that they
even they can't rein back in.
It's a really bad situation.
Mike Journee (18:47):
And and all the chaos at North Idaho College is
tied up in with this as well. Imean, and we have members in the
Idaho legislature who comedirectly from that conversation
that's happening up there aswell and the challenges that
they're bringing that kind ofmentality to to some of the
things that happen in thelegislature so that's it's it's
(19:09):
it matters and it's big deal.
And on a high note, we had wehad the educator, the Idaho
Teacher of the Year, KarenLauritzen at the at the State
House this week, she she did apresentation to the House and
Senate Education committeesabout retaining educators and
(19:31):
the importance of retainingeducators. She did a fantastic
job. She's a wonderful woman anda great a great teacher, proud
IEA member. And she sherepresented the education
community well. She talked a lotabout...what really struck me
was she mentioned that hermessage was what she heard from
her colleagues and what theywanted her to tell the lawmakers
(19:54):
and It all sounded veryfamiliar. It was there's a lot
of things that our members havebeen telling us for a long time
that she brought up. And onething in particular, I thought
that was really important thatshe brought up was, she said, we
need to be able to teach socialemotional learning. We need to
be able to talk and teach ouryoungsters about how to regulate
(20:15):
their emotions, about how tohave social interactions and do
the things that we need to do.
And that's become a sore pointfor many of our members who are
thinking about leaving theprofession, those opportunities
to be able to really engage withour members. And she talked
about funding, she talked aboutall the things that we've talked
about on this podcast many timesand talked and heard from our
members. And she did a greatjob. You guys have any other
thoughts about what about whatyou hear from her?
Matt Compton (20:38):
You know, I had really hoped that this
legislature would take up like asocial, emotional or behavioral
health as an issue, because ofwhat we've seen over the last
handful of years coming out ofthe COVID pandemic, and what
educators are experiencing,particularly with the lack of
adults in the building, the toofew classified employees that we
have. And instead of reallychampioning the needs of
(21:04):
students in the classroom, wehad seven pieces of legislation
that would have allowed vouchersto defund public school. So
parents could, you know, fundthe tuition for private and
parochial schools, there was noattention given to the students
in the classroom. And that'sjust extraordinarily
(21:24):
disappointing that ourlegislature when given an
opportunity to take on such asignificant issue that we've
been talking about all sessionprior to this session, it is
what our members shared withlawmakers during Lobby Day. And
there was just a complete totalfailure to act.
Chris Parri (21:41):
It's so nice to have someone like Karen
Lauritsen come in, and have thecourage to say to lawmakers,
that social emotional learningis a needed priority in our
schools and that it is valuablestudents, it's not some wild
conspiracy theory...
Mike Journee (21:57):
Not a dirty word.
Chris Parri (22:00):
To have someone come up and be able to say that
to them, I think is part andparcel to why I am members are
so important to have in thatbuilding. They aren't shy about
the realities of what'shappening in the classroom. I've
talked to many legislators overthe past two months or 10,000
weeks or whatever, about howcritical and impactful these
(22:22):
behavioral issues are, likeaddressing these behavioral
issues would be to our teachersand, and support staff and
administrators and everyone is asystemic problem. And
legislators I think are startingto wake up to that it is
disappointing. We didn't seelegislation this year. But I'm
so encouraged by theconversations that we've had,
and from an IEA members likelike Karen, who can come down
(22:42):
here and and really speak truthto power
Matt Compton (22:44):
Karen is a remarkable powerhouse. She's a
massive advocate for both theprofession and the students in
her classroom. And all the whileshe's working on her PhD. I
mean, this is what
Mike Journee (22:54):
she's she's co president of her local. She I
mean, she's she's so heavilyengaged in this feeds and
breathes this stuff.
Matt Compton (23:00):
And so it's really fantastic. IEA members truly,
truly care about the students inthe classroom and the
profession.
Mike Journee (23:06):
Yeah.
Well guys, that's all I have fortoday. Thanks for joining me
again.
Paul Stark (23:12):
Thanks, Mike.
Chris Parri (23:12):
Yeah, thanks, man.
Mike Journee (23:14):
Thank you for listening to Idaho Education
Assocation's HOTLINE podcast.
Thanks as well to my colleagues,Chris PerrI, Matt Compton and
Paul Stark for the conversation.
I'm Mike Journee. And as always,I hope you'll join me in
thanking Idaho's public schooleducators for everything they do
for our State students,families, and public education.
Welcome to Idaho Education Association's HOTLINE
podcast, a weekly discussionabout what's happening at the
Idaho legislature on publiceducation, and the policy
priorities of ies members, iemembers of public school
educators from all over thestate. They're Idaho's most
important education experts, andthey use their influence to
fight for a free quality andequitable public education for
every student in the state. I'mMike journee, communications
(00:36):
director at the IEA and I'll beyour host for this episode of
hotline. Today's topic is Week10 of the 2023 legislative
session. With adjournment likelynext week, lawmakers are done
with committee hearings andworking through a long roster of
legislation so they can go home.
Those bills include significantpay raises for educators IEA
members top priority for theyear, and tellingly do not
include any voucher legislation.
(01:00):
joining me for today'sconversation, our IEA political
director Chris Perry, AssociateExecutive Director Matt Compton
and Executive Director Paulstart.
Well, gentlemen, thanks forbeing here today for a quick
review of what's been happeningat the lobby of legislature.
We're in week 10 of the session.
And looks like things arewrapping up, we have the
committee's are all finishedmeeting there. They're trying to
(01:22):
they're sprinting through billson this on both House and Senate
floors. Things are movingforward. And there's a lot going
on. But man, it was reallyshaping up to be a really strong
session, perhaps strong as aweak word for that, for public
education.
(01:43):
Matt Compton, we have, we havebills coming forward on salaries
for educators that are there,and they're waiting for four
votes. As we record this, itsounds like this afternoon,
there might be a vote in theHouse, or I'm sorry, in the
Senate on that one of thosebills. So let's talk a little
bit about those.
Matt Compton (02:04):
So the public school budgets are made up of
seven different appropriations.
Three of them are the ones thatwe're tracking in it deals with
teacher pay, and classified pay.
And then some of the centralservices that has discretionary
money in it. They've all beenassigned bill numbers, as of
yesterday, and typically sessionafter session, these are the
(02:26):
last bills that are consideredby the legislature, they're
called go home bills. And ittypically the the legislature
will take these up as kind ofthe final measure. And it's
because public education makesup well over 50% of the state's
budget. And so they put a lot ofconsideration into it. But we
anticipate that the Senate willvote to approve these later this
(02:50):
afternoon. And then likelyMonday, Tuesday of next week,
the House will take them up. Thereason that I feel so confident
about this is because all ofthose bills came out of J fac
the Joint Finance andappropriations committee,
overwhelmingly with support, andthere just hasn't been a lot of
indication that there's going tobe folks who raise a fuss about
(03:11):
this, there's obviously going tobe those individuals who have
voted against everyappropriation this year. And
they will be held to account onthat. But those folks, folks who
vote in favor of it, we'll get around of applause and thank you
from educators from across thestate.
Mike Journee (03:26):
Yeah, that's right. And Paul, now this was
one of the governor's toppriorities for the legislative
session. And, and it's gonepretty well. I think when our
members, a good chunk of ourmembers, get together Delegate
Assembly in April, they're gonnathere's gonna be a lot to
celebrate, I think they're gonnabe really happy about what's
coming through in the salaryrealm. And so there's gonna be
(03:47):
celebration.
Paul Stark (03:48):
Yeah, there's lots of so many loads and loads. This
has been one for the recordbooks, not only what we were
able to achieve, but what didn'thappen is equally as important.
So I think there's, there's lotsto celebrate, and it should give
educators a lot more confidencein public education in Idaho.
Mike Journee (04:06):
Yeah. Right. So, Chris, one of the things that
didn't happen this year, therewere seven voucher bills that
came forward, probably a newrecord, I would imagine. And the
influence of our members hasbeen key not only in getting
salaries to the point where wethink that they're going to be
going through pretty easily, butbut they've been key in
(04:27):
defeating all seven of thesebills in one way or another. We
had three come forward thisweek. Are well have action taken
on this week. Tell us a littleabout those three bills and and
what happened with them?
Chris Parri (04:37):
Sure. And first, I don't mean to correct you, Mike,
but I think it's week 10,000 ofthe legislative session. And
yes, three ESA voucher billskind of popped their heads up
this week in different kinds offorms, each of them kind of
interesting in their own right.
So the first one was Senate Bill1161, which was sponsored by
Senator den Hartog,
Mike Journee (04:58):
which we've talked about a couple times.
Chris Parri (04:59):
Yeah. This is the one that would have taken about
half of the funding forempowering parents and turned
the empowering, empoweringparents grant system which
provides micro grants toparents, whether their public
school parents, private school,parents, homeschool parents, to
invest in education, educationalmaterials in the home. This is
(05:19):
one that we got behind last yearrecognizing that that
investments in the home arevaluable and support students.
However, the bill sponsors thisyear, turned back around and
wanted to undermine that programby adding vouchers into it
basically. So we fought againstthat one pretty hard. It did
pass the Senate floor last weekon a vote of 19 in favor 15
(05:43):
against and one absent. But asit was headed to the House
Education Committee, it becamepretty clear that this bill had
no path forward either throughthe House Education Committee or
potentially even on the Housefloor, if even if it didn't make
it out of the committee. So thebill sponsors pulled it ahead of
that hearing, kind ofmercifully.
(06:05):
And then there were the twoother ones one was put forward
by Representative Hawkins.
And that one didn't last toolong. It was put on the house
revenue, revenue and taxationcommittee agenda. And then
pretty quickly, just it wasn'teven heard for a print hearing.
So that one ended up prettyquick. And then the last one is
one sponsored by Senator BenAdams, which is a tuition tax
(06:30):
credit voucher. Basically, youwould spend money on private
school tuition, and thenmyouwould retroactively get that tax
credit based on not being inpublic school
the next year, so another onethat we lobbied a bit on and
have worked against and, to behonest, this one was at the 11th
hour and just didn't have achance to ever be heard by that
(06:52):
committee. So we just ran out oftime on that one.
Matt Compton (06:55):
I think it's really important to to emphasize
Mike Journee (06:55):
And there are several key lawmakers involved
to punctuate how the quoteunquote, school choice movement
this this year was supposed tobe kind of a slam dunk across
the country. I was reading a FoxNews article from mid February.
And it says the school choicerevolution is going pedal to the
(07:17):
metal setting the stage forpossibly the best year in US
history for education,educational empowerment. And
they talked about how there werelike over 50 pieces of
legislation nationwide, andstates like Arkansas, Indiana,
Idaho, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio,Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas,
and Wyoming. We're all adoptingsome kind of school choice or
(07:38):
universal voucher program. Butwhat I'd like to do is, you get
to carve out Idaho off thatlist, because we are one of the
in that as well. And of course,our members coming and talking
very few states that were ableto weather this assault on
public education. While otherstates had governors like
Governor Abbott in Texas orGovernor Sanders Huckabee in
Arkansas, who were strongadvocates. We here at home
(08:01):
actually had a strong advocatefor public education in Governor
Brad little who was steadfastand put forth a budget in his
State of the State thatrecognize the importance of
public schools here in Idaho.
with members with lawmakersduring lobby day and on all the
(08:21):
local lobby days that we've hadthroughout the year. Hundreds
and hundreds of conversationswith lawmakers about about pay
about vouchers is shaping up tobe a really great barring any
surprises shaping up to be oneof the best sessions that I can
remember in the 20 years thatI've been watching the
legislature.
Chris Parri (08:41):
So yeah, all the way from the all the way from
the primary elections in 2022,to the general elections in
2022, to the ledge, thislegislative session, there's a
through line of IEA memberstaking action, to support pro
education candidates, and thenpro education policy and to kill
bad policy. And it's prettyincredible to take that all
(09:02):
three of those major events as awhole and look at how it all
kind of fit together to lead tothis such a successful
legislative session. And not tomention also the special session
in September, which was alsokind of a an act of political
genius for public schools.
Matt Compton (09:16):
I was I was thinking that Chris and I were
marveling this this morningabout, we would send out a text
message to members saying reachout to your lawmakers and within
an hour or two hours, we wouldhave 100 to 250 responses in in
just a matter of, of hours. Andit's those voices. It's those
communications. It's thoserelationships that were
developed during Lobby Day. Andthat at the local lobby days
(09:39):
that had been so effectiveduring this legislative session.
Yeah. And educators have so muchfree time, right? Yeah. And
these are all personalizedemails. We always emphasize that
in all of our online actions,like make sure you're you're
personalizing your emails, wedon't want duplicates. We don't
want form emails, and they'retaking time out of their day to
to share their why Yeah, sharingtheir why this is why it's
important for me, my students inmy class, some of my colleagues,
(10:01):
and it's really, reallyeffective.
Chris Parri (10:03):
Awesome.
Mike Journee (10:05):
Well, Paul, there was another bill that came
forward this week there anotherlibrary bill that was out there
that's been been happening inand there was some really
interesting testimony aroundthat from people who take an
interest in education policy.
And in particular, you notedthe, the Idaho Freedom
Foundation and a little bit of ahide-the-ball game that they
(10:26):
might be playing with, with withthe way that they testify on
these different bills.
Paul Stark (10:32):
Yeah, a little bit of duplicity is what I'd call
it, because there was a billthat came up that had to do with
enabling filters, contentfilters for web browsers, on
cell phones when they'reactivated. And in that
situation, the Idaho freedomFoundation's Communication
Director stood up, and basicallysaid, you know, we shouldn't
have the government doing this,you know, this is the parents
responsibility, which, you know,in some part is true, you know,
(10:55):
the parents do play a role inobviously, in their children's
actions and what what they dowith content they receive, but
it's the direct opposite of whatthey've said about this library
bill, the library bills are,well publicized about, you know,
content restrictions. Andstrangely, the Idaho Freedom
Foundation in those situations,desperately wanted the
(11:16):
government to come in andreplace the parent and, and make
the decisions about what contentcould be involved. So the
duplicity is, is really frankly,very interesting. But the
library bill, we hope, it's,it's pending as we sat on the on
the 14th order, and we'll seewhere it ends up. But, you know,
(11:36):
it's just one of these neverending culture wars that, you
know, they're trying to findleverage. It's interesting that
a couple years ago, it was allabout critical race theory and
all about what happening inpublic schools, and the
lieutenant governor and otherpeople had these hearings, which
found nothing, absolutelynothing well, that they figured
out that well is kind of dry.
And so now they're going afterhigher ed, and it's all about
(11:56):
diversity and inclusion, highered and, and the boogeyman that
they see all around them, nevermaterializes, because here in
Idaho are sensible, and welisten to our communities and
things aren't what they're beingrepresented.
Matt Compton (12:13):
I've said this before. And I'll continue to say
it that these campaigns thatserve to discredit public
schools are are all part of therationalization for things like
vouchers that, that theinstitutions that we trust
Public Schools libraries, havebecome some kind of boogeyman
that's indoctrinating studentsor exposing them to harmful
(12:35):
materials. And what that'ssupposed to do is make the
public lose trust, and thendivest their tax dollars from
that and send it to private orparochial schools. And in states
across the country, it's worked.
But at this point, we've beenable to stave off those those
assaults and threats. Becausewe're kind of speaking
(12:56):
rationally we have become therational oasis in in Idaho
politics where, as long as as wemaintain our truth, and
integrity, the both the peopleand lawmakers listen and
respect.
Chris Parri (13:14):
And there's, I think there's a huge missing
piece of the calculation on theyou know, the side of the people
pushing vouchers and, you know,pushing vouchers with one side
of their mouth, and then thesecrazy conspiracy theories with
the other side of their mouthall working together to kind of
privatize public education. Themiscalculation was that there
would be no blowback on them,that their credibility would be
(13:35):
stellar throughout this wholeprocess. But the harder they
attack public schools, theclearer it becomes that these
folks are not out to supportpeople of Idaho, and not in a
trusted ally when it comes tolegislation. So you watch their
influence Wayne and Wayne andmore and more educators or
legislators come out to kind ofstand up for public schools and
(13:57):
stand against the kind ofinflammatory rhetoric and
straight up lies put out by thatside. So when you watch the
debate that takes place, both incommittee and on the on the
House or Senate floor, you'restarting to see a real divide,
particularly in the Republicanparty where people are getting a
little punchy. And they'rethey're taking truth back. While
(14:18):
I see that they might be losinga little bit of the decorum.
Folks are frustrated by theoutlandish things that people on
kind of the alt right are sayingeven on the Senate floor, where
they're being called, called tothe floor for the comments that
they're making, and theircolleagues are just not having
any of it.
Paul Stark (14:35):
If I can add one last thing I know we've been
talking about this, but we seeover and over again in polling
and in really every evidencewe'll get that public, local
public school teachers andeducators are trusted. Their
communities actually loves theirlocal schools, and they do trust
their local educators. Soanybody listening to this, this
is all kind of this legislativefight but we should understand
(14:58):
at the local level oOurCommunities support our schools.
And we've seen that in thepassage of levies and bonds, we
see that in, you know, justpulling about opinions, about
educators. And so I don't thinkanybody should fret at the local
level, you're still very belovedby your local community.
Mike Journee (15:19):
So I wanted to touch really quickly on, you
know, there have been a coupleof bills come forward this year
in relation to school elections.
And the elections that are heldin various months throughout the
year. We just had an election inMarch, and there's another one
coming up in May. And we'vealready got members in at least
(15:39):
one major, one major local,looking at that, and really
drilling down and trying to toovercome a loss in the March
election to get funding for ourschools. Again, the fact that we
have to have these elections atall speaks volumes about how
public education is funded inthe state. But but our members
(16:02):
are really rallying. It soundslike up in quarter lane. Are
these happening, and we've got anumber of other ones on the on
the ballot. Right, Chris?
Chris Parri (16:11):
You bet. Yeah. So the quarter, Elaine coralayne
ran two levees in March. Andunfortunately, both of them
failed. But they're coming backin May with a different ask just
one Levy. And yeah, the thelocal members up there are doing
a great job activating membersand allies in the community and
organizing to make sure that,you know, we're knocking doors
(16:32):
and making phone calls and doingall the work that it would take
to to get something like thisacross the line, because it is a
dire situation up there in NorthIdaho. It's quarter lane, you
know, Lakeland as well.
And a few other I'm sure we'llsee, we'll see a number of
districts that Oh, definitelylost in March, probably coming
back and re And then, of course,you know, our members will be be
(16:53):
heavily involved in those intheir in their local in their
local areas.
Mike Journee (16:57):
And then, of course, we're looking forward in
November to school boardelections and things and they
get involved in those as well.
Chris Parri (17:04):
So yeah, I mean, I think for any any members
listening, and Paul has beenreally good about pointing this
out as well that since theschool districts themselves
can't advocate much for theselevies and bonds, it really does
fall to the to the localassociation in these areas to
take it upon themselves to dothe the work of persuasion,
basically the like the here'swhy this is valuable, you know,
(17:27):
not just the kind of upfrontfact stuff, but also the the
persuasive language that youneed to do and get on doors and
all the other stuff, it kind ofdoes fall to the teachers.
Matt Compton (17:36):
And the reason that we saw the failure up and
failures up in north Idaho isthat you have this active
Republican Central Committeethat notably has endorsed white
nationalists in the past thatare actively trying to, to, to
defund public schools. And thenwhen the the school says, if we
don't pass the levy, we're notgoing to be able to have sports,
(17:59):
that are kind of whining andcrying that the football team or
the basketball team or thewrestling team or the
cheerleading squad isn't goingto be funded. And these are the
these are the real repercussionsfor when you want to defund
schools is that the first thingthat's going to go are the
extracurriculars that are sopopular in the community. And I
(18:20):
look forward to our members inthese, these districts
highlighting those losses.
Chris Parri (18:26):
It's interesting, because that central committee
up there, too, has endorsed somelevies and those ones can fail
too. And I think what we'reseeing is a loss of control,
kind of across the board on thatside of things, that they've
unleashed this kind of whirlwindof lies and paranoia that they
even they can't rein back in.
It's a really bad situation.
Mike Journee (18:47):
And and all the chaos at North Idaho College is
tied up in with this as well. Imean, and we have members in the
Idaho legislature who comedirectly from that conversation
that's happening up there aswell and the challenges that
they're bringing that kind ofmentality to to some of the
things that happen in thelegislature so that's it's it's
(19:09):
it matters and it's big deal.
And on a high note, we had wehad the educator, the Idaho
Teacher of the Year, KarenLauritzen at the at the State
House this week, she she did apresentation to the House and
Senate Education committeesabout retaining educators and
(19:31):
the importance of retainingeducators. She did a fantastic
job. She's a wonderful woman anda great a great teacher, proud
IEA member. And she sherepresented the education
community well. She talked a lotabout...what really struck me
was she mentioned that hermessage was what she heard from
her colleagues and what theywanted her to tell the lawmakers
(19:54):
and It all sounded veryfamiliar. It was there's a lot
of things that our members havebeen telling us for a long time
that she brought up. And onething in particular, I thought
that was really important thatshe brought up was, she said, we
need to be able to teach socialemotional learning. We need to
be able to talk and teach ouryoungsters about how to regulate
(20:15):
their emotions, about how tohave social interactions and do
the things that we need to do.
And that's become a sore pointfor many of our members who are
thinking about leaving theprofession, those opportunities
to be able to really engage withour members. And she talked
about funding, she talked aboutall the things that we've talked
about on this podcast many timesand talked and heard from our
members. And she did a greatjob. You guys have any other
thoughts about what about whatyou hear from her?
Matt Compton (20:38):
You know, I had really hoped that this
legislature would take up like asocial, emotional or behavioral
health as an issue, because ofwhat we've seen over the last
handful of years coming out ofthe COVID pandemic, and what
educators are experiencing,particularly with the lack of
adults in the building, the toofew classified employees that we
have. And instead of reallychampioning the needs of
(21:04):
students in the classroom, wehad seven pieces of legislation
that would have allowed vouchersto defund public school. So
parents could, you know, fundthe tuition for private and
parochial schools, there was noattention given to the students
in the classroom. And that'sjust extraordinarily
(21:24):
disappointing that ourlegislature when given an
opportunity to take on such asignificant issue that we've
been talking about all sessionprior to this session, it is
what our members shared withlawmakers during Lobby Day. And
there was just a complete totalfailure to act.
Chris Parri (21:41):
It's so nice to have someone like Karen
Lauritsen come in, and have thecourage to say to lawmakers,
that social emotional learningis a needed priority in our
schools and that it is valuablestudents, it's not some wild
conspiracy theory...
Mike Journee (21:57):
Not a dirty word.
Chris Parri (22:00):
To have someone come up and be able to say that
to them, I think is part andparcel to why I am members are
so important to have in thatbuilding. They aren't shy about
the realities of what'shappening in the classroom. I've
talked to many legislators overthe past two months or 10,000
weeks or whatever, about howcritical and impactful these
(22:22):
behavioral issues are, likeaddressing these behavioral
issues would be to our teachersand, and support staff and
administrators and everyone is asystemic problem. And
legislators I think are startingto wake up to that it is
disappointing. We didn't seelegislation this year. But I'm
so encouraged by theconversations that we've had,
and from an IEA members likelike Karen, who can come down
(22:42):
here and and really speak truthto power
Matt Compton (22:44):
Karen is a remarkable powerhouse. She's a
massive advocate for both theprofession and the students in
her classroom. And all the whileshe's working on her PhD. I
mean, this is what
Mike Journee (22:54):
she's she's co president of her local. She I
mean, she's she's so heavilyengaged in this feeds and
breathes this stuff.
Matt Compton (23:00):
And so it's really fantastic. IEA members truly,
truly care about the students inthe classroom and the
profession.
Mike Journee (23:06):
Yeah.
Well guys, that's all I have fortoday. Thanks for joining me
again.
Paul Stark (23:12):
Thanks, Mike.
Chris Parri (23:12):
Yeah, thanks, man.
Mike Journee (23:14):
Thank you for listening to Idaho Education
Assocation's HOTLINE podcast.
Thanks as well to my colleagues,Chris PerrI, Matt Compton and
Paul Stark for the conversation.
I'm Mike Journee. And as always,I hope you'll join me in
thanking Idaho's public schooleducators for everything they do
for our State students,families, and public education.
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