Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

>>The first major school choice bill of the session died in the Senate this week, but that's not the end of the conversation.

Tonight, we take a look at what might be next in the debate over public dollars funding private education.

I'm Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, reporter Samantha Martinez takes a look at a proposal that would allow undocumented immigrants to get a restricted driver's license.

Then Senator Ben Adams, Senator Janie Ward-Engelking, Senator Scott Herndon, and Representative Lance Clow join me to discuss education savings account proposals and what we might see after two bills failed to move forward this week.

But first, the Senate passed a joint resolution on Monday asking voters to amend the Constitution to make it harder for citizens to get initiatives or referendums on the ballot.

Supporters want to raise the requirement to get an initiative on the ballot to signatures from 6% of registered voters in all 35 legislative districts, rather than the current requirement of 18 districts.

The proposed constitutional amendment comes after the Idaho Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional an identical bill that passed in 2021.

SJR101 will give all voters in the state the ability to decide if they want Idaho to become another California, or if, like most of us, they want to protect our state from big money special interest groups who buy their way onto ballots and then spend millions of dollars on advertising that deceives voters The proposal before you today is just another in a long line of efforts to restrict or even eliminate the initiative and referendum process since its creation in 1912.

Since its creation in 1912.

>>What I like about this resolution is that it would move us towards more of a grass roots type situation where the every district there'd have to be people that were passionate about the initiative and there'd have to be signatures from each area, not just from a few.

So thank you.

I encourage you to vote for this resolution.

>>I don't think that the ballot initiative process has been running amok in our state at all.

In the last decade, there have been 20 attempts to get something on the ballot.

Only three have succeeded.

Two of those made it to the vote and passed, Medicaid and the education bill.

The one paid canvasing program that millions of dollars were sunk into was horse racing, and it failed.

The voters voted it down.

>>The resolution passed in a 27-8 vote and heads to the House.

If it gets two thirds approval in that body, it will be on the 2024 general election ballot for voters to decide.

On Wednesday, the House Education Committee held two bills concerning minors accessing adult material in public and school libraries.

The first bill would have allowed civil penalties of up to $10,000 against a library if that library distributed obscene material to minors.

Those testifying against the bill said librarians already steer children toward age appropriate material and have collection policies in place.

But Bill supporters said those policies aren't enough and took exception to some explicit scenes in books found in young adult sections of some libraries.

After lengthy testimony, the committee narrowly decided to hold that bill.

A second bill would have required libraries to form collection policies, but the committee adjourned before taking up that proposal.

According to Idaho Education News, after the committee rejected the first bill, long time committee member Representative Judy Boyle left the room the next day.

She told Idaho Ed News that she was stepping down from the committee, citing the bill's failure as the main reason.

Also this week, the House State Affairs Committee advanced a bill that would ban sexually explicit performances in public venues where children might be present.

Those performances could still happen in private venues as long as organizers took reasonable steps to make sure minors aren't present.

The bill's sponsor said the law wouldn't just apply to drag performances, though a number of people from Idaho's LGBTQ community testified to say they were worried that even family friendly drag could be targeted under the language in the bill.

The legislation must go before the full House before advancing.

On Tuesday, the Senate Transportation Committee advanced a bill that would allow undocumented migrants to obtain a restricted driver's license.

Our Samantha Martinez takes a closer look at the proposal and how it would affect some Idaho families.

>>About 37,000 undocumented immigrants live in Idaho, working in agriculture, hospitality, construction and other industries.

Many of them live in fear of being separated from their families if they are pulled over for a minor traffic violation.

>>I'm from here, Idaho, and I raised my children here in Idaho, and unfortunately, it's been without their father.

Because, let me tell you a story.

One day we had to take the kids to the pediatrician and he dropped us off.

And then when he went back to go get us.

We waited for hours for him to come, but he never came.

What happened was he was on his way back and he got pulled over and stopped and he got removed from our lives.

from our lives.

>>Senator Jim Guthrie from McCammon is sponsoring a bill to provide licenses and driver's training for undocumented immigrants.

>>So what is Senate Bill 1081?

It's an effort to change Idaho code found in Chapter three, title 49, Deals with the issuance of a restricted driver's License.

This licensing option would be available to all persons provided they meet other licensing criteria, for example, a restricted driver's license could be issued in lieu of a star card, a real ID card, or a conventional class D license.

And the option might be attractive to someone who wants to limit the amount of information they share.

That said, the focal point of my remarks today will be the opportunity for licensure.

For someone who cannot establish lawful presence in the United States.

>>Senator Guthrie partnered with an organization called PODER that mobilizes and organizes the Latino and immigrant community for cultural and policy change.

Their latest effort is the Manejando Sin Miedo campaign, which translates to driving without fear.

>>Comprehensive immigration reform hasn't happened in a while.

Hasn't happened since Reagan.

There currently isn't a lot of relief for us.

a lot of relief for us.

The system is backed up.

The system is backed up.

We need driver's licenses to get to and from work to go drop off our kids at school to do normal things that you and I do every day.

that you and I do every day.

It is with great joy >>It is with great joy for me to announce that we have over 8000 signatures that were gathered in the last two months in support of this bill.

In the nine districts that y'all represent in this committee.

We were able to collect over 2400 signatures with over half coming from Senator Trakel’s district.

In the end, we had signatures come to us from over 34 of 44 of Idaho's counties.

>>The bill is largely supported by agriculture businesses and organizations like Idaho's Dairymen’s Association.

>>We've been working with our delegation members in D.C. for over a decade as Idaho Agriculture to try and find practical solutions for immigration reform in the country.

That's something that we will continue to do.

But to date, Congress has failed us and they've not found agreement on an immigration policy that works for the state of Idaho or Idaho agriculture or any any other state in the country, for that matter.

This places additional burdens on the state and our communities.

and our communities.

This restricted driver's license bill is targeted at relieving some of those burdens by providing a pathway for somebody that's here without status to be able to get a driver's license and then subsequently obtain insurance.

And as Senator Guthrie articulated, go through the same process you and I do to get a Class D license.

So we get to the book training and the road proficiency training and testing.

>>But many in the law enforcement community are skeptical.

>>Sheriffs in general do not feel that issuing this that issuing this restricted driving restricted driving card to somebody that's broken, that's broken, potentially broken Idaho or federal immigration law is just not a good, good policy for for sheriffs.

This bill does not talk about what documents will be accepted by ITD.

The only thing I can rely on is what the current driver's manual accepts for documents, and it has a whole list of things that most people applying for this will not have.

So I'm not sure what the what ITD is going to look at when they look at what documents they will accept.

what documents it will accept.

>>Estefania Mondragon, executive director of PODER, says some opposition comes from individuals labeling undocumented immigrants as criminals.

>>For me, it you know, you're talking about some of my family members.

They're here contributing and, you know, in jobs that a lot of Idahoans do not want to take.

So and so they are a support for Idaho a support for Idaho and they do pay taxes in whatever way that they do it, whether it's sales tax or property tax.

They're paying into the revenue in our state and are providing so much in terms of that.

So if we're criminalizing people for living their lives, we may need to look at our laws and see what needs to change and change the systems that are backed up, right?

People say, why don't they just get citizenship?

Well, my mom was undocumented for a very long time.

It took her from, you know, when she came here in 88 to when I was in middle school, for her to get for her to get her her permanent residency, or what people call a green card.

So the system is backlogged.

And with COVID, it's even more backlogged.

>>The process of obtaining a restricted driver's license would look similar to getting a normal class D driver's license with a few differences in the cost and appearance of the licenses.

>>It would look different.

So it's not going to be like a regular Idaho driver's license that's horizontally shaped.

that's horizontally shaped.

You know, it gives you all the information, still will give you all the information of where the person lives.

You know, their height, eye color, all that.

The only difference it's going to be it's not going to be horizontal.

It's going to be vertical.

So like a driver's permit for underage drivers and it's going to say explicitly not for voting purposes and not for ID.

>>PODER believes that the benefits outweigh the potential risk for undocumented immigrants information being shared with law enforcement.

But through appropriate channels, it can still be obtained.

it can still be obtained.

>>The The Office Office of Performance Evaluation did a report, and what they said is there's less Hit-and-runs, there's less there's less deadly accidents.

deadly accidents.

And and also it just increases public safety overall.

So for us, we categorize that as a as a commonsense solution.

>>Ultimately, the Senate Transportation Committee narrowly voted to send that bill to the floor without recommendation, meaning the committee doesn't endorse the proposal, but wants to allow further discussion on it.

On Monday, the Senate voted down a high profile education savings account bill that would have allowed students to access public funds for private school or home schooling.

And on Thursday, the House Education Committee declined to introduce another school choice bill that would have established a more modest education savings account program capped at 2000 students per year.

On the topic of school choice, Governor Brad Little announced Tuesday his plans to expand the Empowering Parents Grant program and focus on parental involvement.

To date, we’ve served tens of thousands of students with these grants.

And today, I am pleased to announce the formation of a parent advisory council that will advise the State Board of Education on ways to implement, administer and improve the Empowering Parents Grant program.

Grant program.

Coming out of the pandemic, >>Coming out of the pandemic.

We were really concerned about the learning loss that occurred over the three years where we had disruption and what this Empowering Parents allows us to do is really target interventions for students based on the parents knowledge of where their kid is struggling.

And I think, you know, we're only in year one of this program, but I believe as we move forward, it'll continue to pay huge dividends for our state.

>>We've heard a lot about choice.

We've heard a lot about where our taxpayer dollars should go.

And we've heard from legislators, we've heard from policymakers, we've heard from interest groups that are here in our state.

We've heard from interest groups outside of the state.

We've been missing a voice, a very powerful voice.

And that is of our parents, the people who are using the program, the program, empowering parents, having in its current condition and current form is is new ish, but it builds off of a program that we started in 2020 as a state, our our strong family, strong student grant, and that grew into this and we've seen tremendous support and success.

And we are hearing increasingly from parents on other ways that we can support their choices.

Joining us today to talk about future debates in education Choice are Senator Scott Herndon, Representative Lance Clow, Senator Janie Ward-Engelking, and Senator Ben Adams.

Representative Clow, I want to start with you.

We just heard from the governor and other education leaders talking about the empowering, Empowering Parents Grant program.

How might future school choice proposals loop in that grant program?

loop in that grant program?

>>Well, I can say that the education savings account that I call the Idaho Opportunity Grant Idaho Opportunity Grant does tie in a little bit because the empowering Parents Grants does not allow the use of tuition for those funds.

And in the bill that I'm working on, I'm saying if they're applying for the Idaho opportunity grants, they can use the money for tuition, in that case, up to a $1,000 limit.

So that's about the only tie in that I have on the bill that I've seen.

I have heard stories about an empowering Parents grants expansion, but I don't have the details to share on that.

And I if I could just respond to that.

When we put the Empowering Parents grant in place last year, one of the things we were very careful about because we we it was federal money last year, but we knew going forward it probably be general fund money And we were very careful to make sure that private school tuition was not listed as one of the options, because once you open that door, then you've also opened it to religious schools.

And so that was a conscious effort for us not to do that last year.

So I think there'd be a strong debate about that.

>>Since you brought up religious schools, this is something that has come up in various discussions about school choice legislation using public dollars for private school tuition.

for private school tuition.

Senator Herndon, how has that landscape changed for using those public dollars for religious schools?

>>Well, the Supreme Court has weighed in on it.

And so we know for a fact that if we send state money to private schools, then we cannot discriminate against religious schools as well.

And the way I look at our Idaho constitutional requirement when it talks about our mandate to participate basically in K through 12 education, there's 327,000 people, kids in that K through 12 space and that K through 12 space eligible in Idaho, 300,000 of them participate in the current public school system.

And I think our mandate is for all 327,000 is for all 327,000 as far as eligibility for our constitutional mandate and any programs we offer.

So that would get into private schools, including religious schools, and even involve those who homeschool.

>>Except our Constitution, says public common free schools.

It doesn't say.

And in fact, it's very clear.

Article nine, Section five is very clear that it that we don't send any public funds to secular or religious schools whatsoever.

So it's problematic.

We'd have to do some changing of the constitution.

I think to do that once we or we open the door to private and we can't discriminate against religious.

But I think our founding fathers were very clear.

They wanted us to fund public schools K-12.

>>One thing I want to way in is that the AG’s As the head office office somewhat disagrees because of the Supreme Court rulings on that question.

And so when we talk about if we're going to move into that area, that as Senator Herndon that as Senator Herndon explained, the Supreme Court has said, if we're going to do both or one, we have to do both.

And and I understand that And and I understand that if we start doing private schools, we can't exclude the religious schools.

But I also feel that when our Constitution was written, the first part of that was the importance of having an educated population.

We want all everybody educated.

And the difference was in the beginning of our constitutional statehood of our constitutional statehood is that the only people that were getting educated officially were not in free common schools.

They were private schools.

And so they just want to make sure everyone else had a choice.

And then and then along came the Blaine amendments that that Senator Ward-Engelking is referencing that put a damper on being able to fund those schools.

But back in the beginning, free common schools were defined basically as eight year olds to 14.

>>Senator >>I think I think we have to pick up on the goal and we just talked about that briefly is the intelligence of the people.

So that's our goal.

Our goal is performance of students.

So anything that we do contemplate regarding educational choice is about improving the performance of Idaho students.

That's the goal.

So I think we all share that in common.

>>Senator Adams, I want to bring you into the conversation and one of your concerns this week on the specific Education Savings account bill that appeared in front of the Senate was that it included homeschooling families, and that might open a door and that might open a door for government intrusion into homeschooling freedoms that families currently enjoy under the current system.

Can you explain your concerns a little bit?

a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely.

>>Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, it was 40 years ago that it was illegal to you know, we were having people arrested in this state for homeschooling their kids.

And so as a result of that, the legislature came in and made it very clear that the state was not going to be involved in private education in terms of what they're teaching and what they're allowed to do.

They weren't going to require testing or reporting things like that.

And that's something that has blossomed into a that has blossomed into a beautiful, unregulated school system inside Idaho.

And And because of the history of it, there's a lot of hesitation from the homeschool community to ever open up any door that could lead to homeschoolers or private schools falling under those requirements of the state.

And so almost any program, whether it's federal or state, if it falls under the Department of Education, then there's there's probably going to be a lot of pushback there.

>>And and I think that's true that there could be that, because when we send out public money, when we're using public funds, we're responsible to the taxpayers.

And they expect accountability.

And they want to they want to see accountability.

We see it all the time in the public school system, the public charter and the public traditional schools.

We have.

We have to be accountable.

We have to do testing.

We have reports to fill in.

And so I think that when public funding taxpayer dollars is being used, there has to be some kind of accountability.

>>We that we we should say, about accountability.

Right now, the reading science and math performance of Idaho students is in the 30 percentile range on a number of test measures.

So when we talk about accountability, I think we're talking about the money getting to where we intend it to go.

We're not talking about the money being attached to the actual results of student performance.

Going back to the homeschool front.

I moved Idaho because of Idaho's great homeschooling freedom.

I personally think we should probably include that in the Idaho Constitution.

And so I'm actually having a constitutional amendment drafted to make sure that's protected for homeschooling parents regardless of what happens with any of these educational choice options.

I think we're always going to have to be on guard on behalf of homeschooling parents to make sure that they continue to enjoy freedom in that space.

to enjoy freedom in that space.

And I had mentioned on the Senate floor this week that if our bill that we considered earlier this week had passed the Senate, I was not planning to participate in that program because, frankly, I would leave the resources for families who actually need the resources.

And I think that's our other intent too.

>>Well and to be to be honest, our homeschooling families can take advantage of, you know, of their traditional school activities, extracurricular, they can do music, they can come in and do testing if they want.

We provide all that.

They're they're they're they're allowed to use allowed to use any of the curriculum that they want.

So we provide quite a bit of freedom for homeschooling families to to pick and choose.

And I think that's good.

But when we start moving in to private and religious schools, then it gets a little more complicated I think.

>>On accountability, though, I think we need to point out that we're talking about programs, these education savings account style programs, and say that we need accountability.

So and the bill that I was working on and I'm actually working on a slight different version this morning, but version this morning, but it does have some accountability.

It requires the schools to provide nationally normed tests to the parents.

The parents must sign an affidavit that they've gotten it, so the parents at least know.

That doesn't go far enough for some.

So I'm most likely going to be changing that to say; that the parent must provide a copy of their test results.

On the other side >>Would that also include homeschooling families?

>>I’m just almost there.

In my, and just almost their in the bill that I've been working on.

I don't refer to home schools.

I didn't say this program does not include anybody in homeschooling, but what I say if you want this money and you can sign up for a personalized student education plan, which is a designed plan, and in that they must provide nationally normed tests, they must show us their test scores and they must show that they're at grade level are showing growth because they're using the state money.

>>Senator Adams, real quick, I wanted to ask you, moving forward into the future, would you support any bill that includes homeschooling families in a school choice program?

in a school choice program?

>>Yes, actually.

So I'm one of those Republicans that's not convinced.

I think the ESAs have worked really well in some states, but because we have the level of freedom that we have here in that in that homeschool arena, the ESA model is problematic.

model is problematic.

But I do think there are ways outside of that that we can fund school choice in the state of Idaho without without the strings.

>>What would that look like?

>>It would probably look like a refundable tax credit.

>>And, And just, just, you know, I think the elephant in the room is that we've underfunded public education for years in Idaho.

We've been 51st in the nation and our students have still performed better than average, the national average.

But we have, you know, almost $1,000,000,000 in deferred maintenance in our school buildings.

And and we're 51st in the nation.

51st in the nation.

I don't believe we have the funds right now to take on private schools and religious schools at this point.

And now maybe down the road when we've maybe when we're in the middle of the pack as far as funding per pupil, it might be a conversation that would be more relevant.

>>Senator Ward-Engelking You know, You know, Democrats have mostly been opposed to ESA and similar programs for the specific reasons that you mentioned, this school choice or vouchers or ESAs or whatever you know, you are focusing on.

That's gaining popularity and gaining momentum, not just in Idaho but around the nation.

Are there any proposals that would be palatable to your caucus?

>>Yes, I did support the empowering parent grant, and I think we're looking at putting $30 million towards that again this year.

And that provides an avenue for parents to get devices and curriculum and tutoring and and lessons that they need.

And I'm okay with that.

I'm also okay with the 529 plan.

We provide $12,000 per year per student tax free money.

If parents want to put that in a savings account or grandparents or even employers can donate to that for their employees.

So we have put quite a few things in place.

There might be some other things that we can do.

>>I'd like to weigh in there because we do not provide $12,000 a year >>No >>to people in 529 plans if people heard that, people can put $12,000 a year and get some tax benefits from it.

>>Tax free.

Sorry.

You're right.

Absolutely.

>>I think we should just weigh in that.

One of the reasons this motivating ESAs is a school choice option is because when I look at my 8 children, they're all very different.

And what what we've designed in a lot of schools is a system that looks very similar and uniform for every type of kid.

And so what we want to do is we want to provide options for those kids who do learn differently and really everybody does learn differently.

And so that's what we want to use to increase the success of our children is really respond to the vast differences between them.

>>And I agree with with Senator Herndon.

That's exactly true.

And that's why we have open enrollment.

That's why we have charter schools and magnet schools and flexible schedules and apprenticeships and internships and career technical schools.

a are trying to meet that need in a variety of ways for all of our parents.

>>Real quick, on 529’s, because one of the challenges with the 529’s is it’s a federal program.

Right.

And so And so just from the baseline that that kind of moves homeschoolers out of the arena.

out of the arena, um, I want, I want I want all the students in Idaho to have this opportunity.

Right.

And so, again, there again, these will be discussions, obviously, that we'll have going forward.

But I just wanted to put that out there.

>>We have about a minute left about a minute left with all of these varying factors, plus all of the other opinions at the state House with 101 of your colleagues, do you think we are going to have a compromise this session?

>>I would say that's going to be challenging this session.

I think we all probably are interested in a strategic long term goal of getting where we want to be.

I think it's probably going to take more than one session to get there.

Yeah, well, know, I'm hopeful >>Well, Yeah, well, know, I'm hopeful I'm hopeful I'm going to be reintroducing next week and we'll see how that goes.

and we'll see how that goes.

>>Well, and I would agree, I don't think we're quite there.

I think we we need to listen to stakeholders and parents and to stakeholders and parents and and students even and see what we can do to move forward.

>>I anticipate seeing multiple more, more, multiple versions of school choice legislation this year.

We might not get one that we have consensus on, but it moves that needle to where next session when we come in.

>>All right.

Well, thank you to all four of you for joining us for this great conversation.

We'll be here for all of those introductions.

Thank you for watching.

We'll see you next week.

Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.