Competing school choice proposals move forward

BOISE — House and Senate members introduced competing private school choice proposals Wednesday.

In the morning, Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, presented her school choice tax credit bill, which is similar to one she introduced last session that failed to advance out of the committee.

The House Revenue and Tax Committee voted Wednesday on party lines to introduce the bill, which allows it to come back for a full hearing. Boise Democratic Reps. John Gannon and Steve Berch voted against the introduction.

In the afternoon, Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, introduced a bill to increase funding in the existing Empowering Parents grant program by $50 million and allow the funds to go toward private education tuition at participating schools that meet a minimum “threshold of accountability.” The bill marks a reversal of his previous votes against this proposal.

The Senate Education Committee voted to introduce the bill, with only Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, opposing. It will also come back for a full hearing.

The school choice tax credit option

The bill would provide a refundable tax credit of up to $5,000 per K-12 student or up to $7,500 for students up to age 21 with disabilities for educational expenses that may include private school tuition. Students cannot claim credits for any semester they are enrolled in public schools or public charter schools.

The total cost would be $50 million, with priority given to families that are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level in the first year, but any family may apply.

Families meeting the lower-income threshold would be eligible to receive the payment as advance payment to receive within 60 days that they were eligible for the credit.

The law includes penalties for using the funds for ineligible expenses but there are no requirements around curriculum or educational outcomes.

“We are not looking to duplicate the public school accountability system,” Horman said. “Private schools already have their own responsible and accountable metrics and standards.”

There are minimum requirements that students receive instruction, not provided by a parent, that includes English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies — in-person, virtually or in a combination of the two.

Horman said the bill was designed so a homeschool parent cannot pay themselves a salary.

Other eligible expenses for the tax credit include to pay fees related to tutoring, nationally standardized assessments, college admission assessments, advance placement tests, travel to and from academic instruction — which can include public transportation, ridesharing or a private vehicle at the mileage reimbursement rate used for state employees.

The credit would be administered by the Idaho Tax Commission and start being available in January 2026. After the first year, the tax commission would be required to prioritize prior recipients and then households at or below the 300% of the federal poverty level.

Starting in 2027, the commission would be required to submit an annual report with information regarding the number of parents who applied each year, the amount of the average tax credit allowed, the adjusted gross income of households applying for the credit and a list of categories of qualified expenses that participants used the credit for.

Gannon raised questions about other tax credit programs that would have a spending cap and whether it is legal to deny eligible people who apply once the cap is reached.

“I’m not aware of any other tax credit that is structured like this,” Gannon said. “(It) seems like somebody might file a lawsuit or something and say, ‘hey, I should get it because it’s there and it’s a text credit.’ So I’m very uncomfortable with that.”

Berch said he didn’t like that there was no performance accountability included in the bill and no assurance that the cost of the program would not increase in the future.

Majority Leader Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian, who is a co-sponsor on the bill, said it was “long overdue in Idaho.”

Empowering Parents program

The Empowering Parents program was created in 2022 to provide grants of up to $1,000 per student for educational expenses, such as technology, textbooks, and certain types of therapies. The grants are prioritized for families earning less than $60,000 a year and may go to public, private and homeschooled children.

“We’re building on an existing system,” Lent said. “We’re not trying to build something new.”

The bill would bring the grants up to $5,000 per student with a maximum of $15,000 per family.

The bill would cost $50 million in new spending.

There’s $30 million available for the grants currently, and Lent’s bill would add another $50 million. However, the bill would also provide $30 million of existing funding to go toward special education in public schools.

There would be a requirement that the Empowering Parents fund never exceed $50 million.

The bill would require that participating schools — which could include preschools — to be accredited, adhere to special education law, state non-discrimination in education laws, Idaho’s parental rights law, maintain and provide enrollment and performance data for eligible students, and achievement assessments or state standardized tests.

The State Board of Education would be tasked with creating an application process to designate participating schools and pre-K providers.

The bill would also make changes to public education, and eliminate state-level reporting requirements, leaving only federally mandated reports.

There were two attempts during the 2023 session to allow Empowering Parents to be used for private school tuition, neither of which advanced out of their respective House and Senate committees. At the time, Horman was a co-sponsor of the bill and Lent voted against this proposed legislation.

SB 1161 during the 2023 session narrowly passed the Senate in a 19-15 vote, with one member absent, but stalled in the House.

School choice background

The past three sessions, there has been a major push by an out-of-state group, the American Federation for Children, both through lobbying funding and election spending. The AFC political action committee spent more than $300,000 in the May 2024 primary.

Multiple proposals have come forward, including a universal education savings account (ESA), grants to allow funds to go toward private education, and others. None of those proposals have advanced. However, the May primary may have had a significant impact on how the current Legislature will decide on the matter, with several incumbents who had been opposed to the ideas getting ousted by opponents who favor them.

Opponents have said that Idaho should focus on its constitutional obligation to fund public schools and have had concerns that so far proposals have not come with requirements for transparency or accountability regarding curriculum or outcomes. Proponents have said that money should follow students even if they don’t go to public school.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little has in the past opposed previous attempts to add private school tuition to existing state programs, but in his State of the State address this year, said he would set aside $50 million in his proposed budget for school choice.

Little said that he would only consider a school choice proposal if it meets the same standards of public schools “while prioritizing families that need it the most.”

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.