As I write this letter, Idaho is considering passing two bills that will destroy the education system as I knew it. I am writing simply to express my sadness.

The new law will put at least 700 teachers out of work in Idaho. It will replace them with computers, requiring every student to take at least six of their high school courses online. It will also increase class size and forbid teachers from negotiating anything other than salaries and benefits, which means teachers can no longer fight for smaller classes, changes in curriculum, or anything regarding the well-being of students.

I was one of those students not long ago. I started at Athol Elementary, moved to Idaho Hill Elementary in Oldtown, then Priest River Junior High, and graduated from Coeur d’Alene Charter in 2004.

Because I owe so much of my life to the public education I received from our state, the mistake that Idaho is about to make breaks my heart. The new law makes teachers expendable. It states that students can get the same instruction from a computer as they can from a dedicated human being.  

My teachers were everything to me. I owe, really owe, most of my life to the education I was lucky to receive from them. Now, I teach creative writing at the University of Iowa and I am about to receive my Master’s from a world-renowned writing program.

I am sorry for all of you students who will not be given the sort of life that I have now, because Idaho has given up on you.

I am sorry for the teachers too.

It has always been my plan to return to Idaho to teach, to give back what was given to me.

Now, much to my own sadness, my plans have changed.

EMILY RUSKOVICH

Iowa City, Iowa