[Vision2020] Idaho chooses rock bottom, not bottom dollar

Moscow Cares moscowcares at moscow.com
Sun Jul 1 02:39:08 PDT 2018


Courtesy of today’s (July 1, 2018) Lewiston Tribune.

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Idaho chooses rock bottom, not bottom dollar

Idaho just hit rock bottom.

Again.

This time, the state's abysmal score has to do with prekindergarten programs.


Idaho doesn't invest in any.

It's one of six states that spend nothing to help young children become ready to learn before they walk into the classroom. The others include New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and Montana.

It shows.

Released Wednesday, the annual KidsCount survey says 68 percent of Idaho's 3- and 4-year-olds are not attending some kind of early education program. That puts Idaho in a tie with North Dakota for 49th place.

That's a decline from almost a decade ago when 64.5 percent of Idaho's young children were not attending some kind of preschool. At the time, the Gem State ranked 46th.

While other states have moved forward, Idaho has stood still.

It's even worse for kids stuck in poverty.

Among those whose families earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty rate, 75 percent have no access to preK - compared to 59 percent of the kids whose families make more.

From there, the pattern takes shape.

To be ready to learn even at the kindergarten level, you have to recognize print, identify letters, count to 20 and understand shapes and colors.

Six years ago, 56.1 percent of the 21,993 Idaho children who were beginning school tested at the Idaho Reading Indicator benchmark.

It dropped to 51.4 percent by the fall of 2016.

You can see the impact in Idaho's high school graduation rate. As Idaho Education News' Kevin Richert detailed earlier this month, the Grad Nation report notes the Gem State's graduation rate reached 79.7 percent in 2016.

Only seven states had a lower graduation rate and another two tied with Idaho.

Elsewhere, the report says 75.8 percent of Idaho's high school drop-outs were raised in poverty. Only nine states tied or exceeded that proportion.

Connect the dots:

Kids raised in poverty have less access to affordable preK.

They start out behind and some never catch up.

School becomes a never-ending cycle of failure and frustration.

Many drop out of high school - let alone continue on to get some kind of post-high school training the 21st century economy requires.

They remain mired in a low-skill, low-wage economy - assuming that there are low-skill, low-wage jobs to be had.

All of which inevitably leads to dependency on social programs and/or the criminal justice system.

It's one thing to say the state is missing out on a good investment - each $1 spent on quality preK yields an estimated $7 down the road because more people emerge from the education system as self-sufficient adults.


It's quite another to recognize how under-trained workers mired in poverty become a drag on the economy. It's a big part of why the U.S. GDP is growing more slowly than other industrialized nations.

Right on cue, Idaho is talking about spending $500 million to expand its prison system rather than contemplating an investment in preK.

"As a taxpayer, I'd take a $5,000 investment to get a child ready to learn and succeed in school any day over spending $20,000 a year to lock them up once they commit a crime," counters Rod Gramer, president of Idaho Business for Education.

But you know all that.

If anybody asked, you'd say spend the money by helping kids when it does the most good.

In fact, someone did ask.

Earlier this year, a poll commissioned by the Idaho Association for the Education of Young People found 76 percent of voters - and 80 percent of parents - want Idaho to do more for early childhood education.

How do you transform an idea with 76 percent support into action?

There's an election coming up this November.

The state will elect a new governor, the state's executive officers and all 105 legislators.

Ask those candidates to make a commitment toward pulling Idaho into the future.

Then vote accordingly. - M.T.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" 
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
  
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