Idaho can’t afford voucher subsidies for the rich

Idaho’s public schools are a historic place of pride in Idaho’s growth and cultural development. They continue to anchor communities’ social structures by providing actual places that signify community unity.  

Beyond being just places of learning, they are where we vote, see our children grow and mature into social beings, sponsor organized sports, music, and arts, and provide a stage for public participation in political and civic discussion. In many of Idaho’s smaller rural communities, they strum as the region’s most vital organ. 

The drafters of Idaho’s constitution recognized the local importance of public schools by requiring that the State establish and maintain a “general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free common schools in a safe environment conducive to learning” for all school districts in the state. In its 2004 and 2006 Opinions in litigation against the State brought by the Idaho Schools for Equal Educational Opportunity, however, the Idaho Supreme Court exposed the failure to adequately fund our public schools.

Sadly, instead of responding to these decisions with increased public-school funding, our legislature has gone in a different direction, further damaging the state’s public school system. In the 2025 session of the Idaho legislature, the legislature passed, and the governor signed, HB 93, providing up to $5,000 per student tax credit ($7,500 for special needs students) for any pupil enrolled in a private school. This law will contribute significantly to the continued gutting of our public school system for the benefit of a select and elite few. 

Private secondary schools in Idaho costs on average between $9,000 and $12,000 per year, depending upon the set of sources reviewed. Thus, unless a family can pony up about double what the state offers for each student, private schooling will remain the privilege of richer families. A recent national study discovered that students already enrolled in private schools are the biggest beneficiaries of new voucher programs. Not surprising, the same study found some private schools used the new voucher money to raise their tuition charges. Thus, overall, the same fortunate few go to private schools, but the schools get more money at taxpayer expense. A pretty good boondoggle if a family already enjoys that system, but not much of benefit for the less prosperous. 

The HB 93 giveaway does not contain any performance measurements. While our public schools operate under a gaze measuring the quality of outcomes, HB 93 spending has no such dimension. There exists no means in the new private school subsidy to gauge whether state funding of private schools provides any successful education. The bill openly invites charlatans and hucksters into Idaho’s educational space. 

HB 93 devotes $50 million annually to the new voucher subsidy for the well-to-do. This makes no economic sense for Idaho. While the legislature wants to give the advantaged more advantages, we currently suffer a $79.9 million shortfall in the current fiscal year general budget, causing a 3% holdback to some state budgets, and a separate $60 million shortfall in our Medicaid budget. If this voucher giveaway went away, it would cover most of one of these shortfalls. This must make any taxpayer who cannot afford a private school for their children cringe at the unfairness of this system. And those of us who live in or near Idaho towns that do not have private schools cannot even participate in the system. 

More disheartening, while Idaho’s investment in public school spending has fallen 15% in the last 20 years, we can expect the voucher subsidy to bloat about 200% to 300% in the next ten years, as it did in Florida, Arizona, and Indiana. 

HB 93 is simply a bad idea funded by all taxpayers for the benefit of a chosen few and private businesses at a time when Idaho suffers budget shortfalls.  The better idea is to properly fund our constitutional public school system for the benefit of us all. 

C. Tom Arkoosh is a longtime Boise attorney and a former Democratic candidate for Idaho Attorney General.