Idaho’s education system sucks and for the last three years Education Superintendent Tom Luna and Governor Butch Otter have been whittling away at the funding for Idaho schools. As a result when my niece takes history next year, in her 3A high school none the less, she won’t have a history teacher, she’ll have to take it online.
This is because their only history teacher retired last year. So did the art teacher, but she was replaced. They have three English teachers and enough coaches to cover at least football, basketball, baseball, track, and golf. They can afford all this excess, but not a single history teacher.
Politics and budget cuts should not require a teenager to learn history from a computer.
Oh, and the real feather in the cap of the Idaho education system is that my niece said that she learned more in 8 hours in the car with me than she did in the last 50 days at school. I know she was exaggerating a bit, but she was serious enough about the point that she shared it with the rest of the family when we got to our destination and then on Facebook once she got home.
Good going Luna, at least you don’t need an understanding of history to be a potato farmer, or Idaho politician for that mater.
Permalink
As a former teacher, budget cuts in education is one thing that really gets my goat. I understand the need to cut state funding, but education is not the place to do it. The problem is that education is not properly seen as an investment in the future on the county/state/country, and many people think it's just a money pit so we should stop throwing our dollars away. I have some suggestions to fix the system, but none are really practical or likely to be widely accepted. I hope the Idaho government pulls its head out of its backside and gets this situation sorted out.