The Republican Party State Convention: The Good News and the Bad

I fear the conservatives are committing two major mistakes. First, they are impatient and want to move too quickly which will scare the voters. Second, they have little strategy to implement their policies. They have confused principle adoption with policy formation.

For example, the Convention voted to repeal the income tax; yet, had no suggestions on how to reduce spending to make these tax cuts possible. Tax cuts cannot come without spending cuts; yet, no resolution was introduced indicating where spending reductions could or should take place.

With a significant Republican/Conservative shift likely to occur in November, the lack of well thought out Conservative policy initiatives will negate this opportunity. Conservatives have no plan; just principles. The Conservatives in the Republican Party need to formulate policy initiatives to deal with social programs in Health and Welfare that require 20 percent of the State budget and education that requires another 65 percent of the State budget. Until I hear these two issues being addressed, I don’t see any real changes taking place in Idaho or at the federal level.

Every Student Could Graduate with an Associate Degree from H.S.

Yesterday, I started crunching some numbers to see what a student in the 6th grade had to do in order to graduate from high school with two years of college. The strategy used below is based upon taking all 72 semesters worth of classes required by the public school system for grades 6-12, a 7 period day, and taking two classes every summer from IDLA. It does not include challenging classes that is allowed under Idaho law.

Vallivue school district has a plan in place that allows a high school freshman to finish high school with an associate degree by taking concurrent enrollment classes. This program does not begin until the freshman year which means that by taking summer classes and/or challenging some classes a student could finish high school with an associate degree even sooner. Here is the class schedule.


Total classes needed 72
7th grade 14 during school year 2 summer 56 classes remaining
8th grade 14 during school year 2 summer 40 classes remaining

9th grade 14 during school year 2 summer 24 classes remaining
10th grade 14 during school year 2 summer 8 remaining
11th grade
12th grade

All classes taken during the junior and senior year could count toward an associate degree or a professional technical skill by using concurrent enrollment. Concurrent enrollment is a class that counts both for high school credit and college credit.

If you have any questions please email me at ssthayn@aol.com

Public Education and the Idaho Constitution

The Idaho State Constitution in Article IX section 1 states “…it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free, common schools.” What does “thorough” mean?

The teachers union (IEA) has equated “thorough” to mean adequately funded. The IEA would logically make this connection because of the relationship between funding and teacher salaries. However, the primary purpose of public education is to educate children; whereas, teacher pay is a secondary issue and important only in that it is a means to an end. The end is the education of children.

Section 1 also gives the reason for public schools: “The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people…” Schools were to be established to help the citizens become intelligent and educated and capable of self-government.

The Idaho Constitution gives few details concerning the nature of public education. It simply defines the prime purpose.

Public education has come to mean:
1. 180 days of attendance
2. 7 hour school day
3. 5 day school week
4. k-12 years of school
5. 44 - 48 credits hours of work in high school
6. 3 years of high school math
7. Students taught by a certified teacher
8. Public bussing
9. Sports activities
10. Music, band, drama, etc.
None of these above 10 items or educational traditions are listed in the Idaho State Constitution. They are all policies that we have adopted in the years since 1890. The State Constitution gives us a goal with no or little direction of how to accomplish the goal.

Is there an assessment to see if the goal of public education has been reached? When each student graduates from high school are they capable of self-government? What makes a citizen capable of self-government? Has this been defined? If not, why not? This is our Constitutional mandate for public education.

What does a person need in order to support a “republican form of government”? I ask this question for two reasons. The first is to clarify the purpose of public schools. It seems much of school funding discussions have focused on adult salaries. It’s time to shift our focus to student outcomes, and then make adjustment to take care of the needs of adults. Second, Idaho is experiencing serious budget shortfalls. If Idaho continues to experience budget shortfalls, Idaho taxpayers will not be able to afford all of the educational traditions that we have been able to fund in the past. A serious look at the core reason for education may clarify our thinking in deciding which programs are necessary and which are not.