COEUR d’ALENE — Idaho superintendent of public instruction candidate Cindy Wilson is busy touring North Idaho this week. In an interview Thursday at The Press, the Democratic nominee spoke out about her incumbent Republican rival, Sherri Ybarra.

“She has only attended 50 percent of public funding formula meetings” and wasn’t present during legislative hearings on a school vouchers bill last spring, Wilson said.

“I show up,” she said. “If you know education, why would you not speak about it?”

Wilson credited Gov. Butch Otter’s 2013 Task Force on Education — on which Wilson served — with recent increases in funds for teachers and schools. Nothing Ybarra has recommended has passed, she said.

Wilson is passionate about politics, having studied the subject at Boise State University and as a public school teacher for 33 years. She added that she has voted in every election since she turned 18, and has lobbied for public education at the state capitol since 1983. According to a 2014 Idaho Education News story, Ybarra skipped at least 15 of the 17 state elections before seeking office herself.

Wilson’s relationships with legislators across the state will come in handy if elected, she said. However, she believes that the office of superintendent should be a nonpartisan one. She comes from a Republican family and only declared herself a Democrat when appointed to the Board of Correction three years ago, she said.

On other issues:

- Wilson said the way to fix rampant civic illiteracy is by teaching youths each subject through the lens of civics. It wouldn’t cost more money, and it would teach students how to listen, respect differences, and have civil conversations.

“I believe the reason the Framers of the Constitution and the Founders of this country wanted a public education system was to ensure that we had civics and to ensure that the people understood how to participate and how to keep the republic they had created,” she said.

- Teachers know best how to handle the problem of smartphones in classrooms. Bans can create problems, and innovative teachers know how to use smartphones for learning, she said.

- Focusing on learning can be accomplished by more efficient use of classroom time. Also, in-depth research is needed to assess the impacts of four-day weeks, which many rural Idaho school districts have adopted, she said.

- There has to be some accountability in homeschooling, Wilson said. The economic impact of uneducated children means that the public has “a right to know that kids are educated.” She also liked the idea of some kind of partnerships between public school districts and homeschoolers.

- Wilson opposes school vouchers that “take public money and put it into private organizations.”

“I’m very opposed to that,” she said.

She would also rather put additional funds into existing schools than to create new charter school districts. The candidate supports importing innovative lessons learned from charter schools into traditional public schools.

“Personally, I don’t think there’s a reason we shouldn’t be trying innovative, data-based approaches within traditional public schools,” she said.