Why Jarvis' Dropout Plan Won't Work -- and What Will

The Idaho Statesman is reporting that Rich Jarvis is proposing to spend $11 million by forcing students to stay in high school until they're 18 (unless they graduate, presumably). The new law would help promote higher graduation rates, lower crime rates, and boost the economy because high school graduates earn more money, pay more taxes, and are less likely to spend time in jail, he said in an earlier version of the Statesman story.

The move is not a surprise; in fact, Jarvis had said during the campaign that he wanted to make high school graduation mandatory. Apparently he realized that while he can force the horse to come to water, he can't make it drink, and instead is sticking to just making the students stay enrolled until they're 18 rather than trying to force them to pass.

Of course,  having more kids graduate from high school is a laudable goal. But this is a feel-good proposal that substitutes a law for actually solving a problem -- if indeed it's a problem at all -- that goes against current thinking, and which may actually make Idaho schools worse.

Let's start with the fact that it takes away parental choice. Some legislators have voted against kindergarten and pre-kindergarten education, saying giving parents that option takes away their parental choice.  If legislators really support parental choice, they would continue to allow parents and students to make the choice to leave school at 16, if they decided it was best for the student.

Indeed, should the law pass, parents could be charged with a misdemeanor if their teenagers are declared to be "habitually truant" and don't attend school. 

A copy of Jarvis' proposed legislation is not yet available, so it isn't clear what the $11 million it will cost includes other than the per-student amount the department pays schools. Does it include enforcement? How, exactly, will this be enforced? How many staff people will it take to make sure the kids come to school, and to charge the parents with crimes if they don't?

(Jarvis, in fact, doesn't understand why the new legislation would cost anything. “We’re putting another student in the classroom. We already have a teacher. We already have desks. We have the textbooks, heat, lights. Where is the expense?” he's quoted as saying in the Statesman.)

 It also isn't clear how a group of disgruntled students will end up graduating, unless the schools begin passing students regardless of their performance, which will end up cheapening the value of a high school diploma for all Idaho students.  Or will the students get a wink and a nod that they are being "homeschooled," giving the impression that homeschooling is a way to get out of the requirements and making it harder for those families who actually do homeschool to be treated legitimately?

Moreover, having a group of potentially disruptive 16- and 17-year-olds in a high school could be distracting, and perhaps even dangerous, for other students, making it more difficult for the students to get an education who want to be there. What would having a group of poorly performing, unmotivated students do to Idaho's compliance rate with federal standards such as No Child Left Behind?

In this budget year, when schools are already facing having their budgets cut by more than 5 percent, do we want to spend $11 million to force students to attend school who don't want to be there? What more will be cut from the education budget to provide this $11 million?

Did Jarvis even talk to the Department of Education about his proposal? According to the December 2008 newsletter from the Idaho Business Coalition for Education Excellence, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna told the group in September that one of his top three priorities was "a K-10 system in which students pass a comprehensive exam and, if proficient, go on to community college or a professional technical school. A student could stay in high school for grades 11 and 12 to take remedial courses or advanced placement/college prep courses." How does this fit with Jarvis' proposal to force students to stay in school until they're 18?

The problem is that Jarvis thinks that slapping a rule, forcing students to stay in school until 18, guarantees that they will learn, and will get a high school diploma. It doesn't work that way. 

If Jarvis' real goal is to increase the number of high school graduates in Idaho, as he claims, there's better ways to do it. Instead of making a new law and adding to the amount of government, how about finding out what actually makes students drop out, and solve those problems?

First, Idaho's rate of high school graduates is pretty good. As of 2006, the most recent year for which numbers are available, Idaho ranks 13th in terms of students graduating high school. 78.7 percent of students graduate from high school. And the preliminary figures for 2007-2008, as given by the Statesman, are even lower than those for 2006-2007.

Jarvis said that 18 states have already required students to stay in school until 18, but if you look at the statistics, states that have implemented those laws don't necessarily have better rates of graduating from high school. New Jersey, for example, has the highest rate of graduation, with 86.3 percent, but it lets students drop out at 16. 

In fact, of the 12 states with higher graduation rates than Idaho, only Wisconsin and Utah require students to stay in school until 18, while Nebraska, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania require students to stay in school until 17. But New Jersey, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Vermont, Montana, and North Dakota all have better graduation rates than Idaho, and all allow students to drop out at 16. 

If the goal is really to increase the number of high school graduates, then the solution is to keep students motivated to stay in school. If they can't -- perhaps for financial reasons, perhaps because they don't do well in a class situation -- then how about increasing the number of alternative high schools, perhaps at night or online?

Studies such as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone have also shown that states with a great deal of "social capital" -- that is, trust, networks, and reciprocity within a child's family, peer group, school, and community -- have schools with higher rates of graduation. If Idaho wants to improve its rate of graduation, it could encourage citizens to take part in actions that improve social capital, such as increasing the turnout in presidential elections, attending more community and neighborhood clubs, increasing the number of nonprofit organizations, or going to church more often. 

There's a community forum in Nampa on January 30th called Keeping the Promise that talks about just that. "If we are to be successful on behalf of at-risk children, we must find a way to provide them with lifelong connections with caring and supportive adults, who can help them transition to the workforce, achieve their higher education goals, and deal with the issues of life when they happen," according to the description of the keynote. While there is one workshop on whether the age should be raised, all the others are about actually looking at the problem.

But this all requires work, and thought -- much more thought than simply slapping people with a new rule and more government -- which isn't even as likely to work.

District Loses Power in Two Key Committees

Senator Russ Fulcher has won a vote in a secret Republican ballot to become the caucus chair, replacing Senator Brad Little of Emmett, who has been appointed lieutenant governor. 

However, in gaining that position, Fulcher gave up his seat on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee -- where, with Representative Cliff Bayer, he had helped to craft a compromise bill to reduce the tax on food in Idaho -- as well as his vice-chairmanship on the Education committee. 

Now, Fulcher -- a commercial real estate developer -- is just a member of the Education committee, and was also named a member of the State Affairs committee. Issues the State Affairs committee worked on in the 2008 legislative session included closing the Republican primary to independents, the business of the Idaho Lottery and Idaho Racing Commission, and liquor licenses. Bayer is now one of only three Treasure Valley representatives on JFAC.

In addition, because Little was known as a moderate voice in the Senate, there is some concern that Fulcher will take the Senate in a more conservative direction, both financially and socially. Conservative gadfly Bryan Fischer called Fulcher, compared to Little, "a significant trade-up for the conservative movement in Idaho, and gives conservatives another reliable, principled vote." 

Fischer is promoting legislation this year that would make it more difficult for a couple with children to get divorced, even in a situation with physical or substance abuse. He did not say whether he expected Fulcher to support this legislation.

District 21 Legislators Hold Citizen Forum

District 21 legislators held a neighborhood meeting in Kuna earlier this month where they told more than 50 people that they saw the current economic crisis as an “opportunity,” because it would help them to cut waste. 

Some members of the audience, such as one woman describing how disabled children were having their training cut from 30 to 22 hours, and who were facing their providers going out of business because the cut in hours wouldn’t pay for the overhead, did not seem to see it as an “opportunity.” 

“I hope you take back to the Legislature how unhappy people are here, or there’s going to be anarchy in this country,” said one man. “There are some unhappy campers in this state.”

Faced with that concern, some of the legislators’ responses struck an off note. In response to the woman concerned about cuts in training for disabled children, Senator Russ Fulcher, who hosted the event, said, “Should the state or family have control? What is the responsibility of the state? When I’m confronted with state vs. family, I’m going to go with the family most of the time. That’s where control should be,” as though by asking for help in making their disabled children productive citizens parents were somehow giving up their responsibility as parents.

It was reminiscent of former legislator Bill Sali, who as a member of the House Health & Welfare committee refused to increase funding for nursing homes, saying it would deprive people of the opportunity to take care of their aging, sick parents themselves at home.

One small business owner encouraged the legislators to look beyond saving money to helping businesses make money, noting that a number of Idaho companies actually had their best year last year, and that legislators should be asking those companies what they would need to help them increase their revenue. While big companies such as Micron are given tax breaks, small business is not getting anything, he said.

Fulcher encouraged constituents to trust him to do the right thing because, due to Idaho’s part-time citizen legislature, he isn’t a career politician. “None of us make our living [as legislators],” said Fulcher, who since joining the Legislature has quit his job as a technology executive to become a commercial real-estate developer. Legislators’ pay – which was increased by 5 percent in the last legislative session, from $16,116 to $16,921 – is “nothing more than a stipend,” he said.

“We don’t have an incentive to help special interests,” Fulcher said, adding later, “I don’t have any motivation for doing something wrong or stupid.”

Representative Cliff Bayer, who was also present, said the state would be looking for “novel” funding approaches, such as the Sales Tax Anticipated Revenue (STAR) program – which lets developers decide which roads to expand based on their needs and their willingness to front the money, but which the region then has to pay back by giving them a 60% break on their sales taxes.

A number of constituents brought up annexation reform, a sore point in the district. “Idaho ranks third from the bottom in ethics in holding public office,” said one man. “Every time we’ve submitted a bill to kill forced annexation, it gets shot down by the Contractors Association.”

In response to some citizens saying they had been treated disrespectfully by legislative committees for not knowing the right way to testify, the legislators said they would “help you through the ropes” if people called them up a week or so before a hearing.

The legislators deserve credit for holding the forum in the first place. A number of issues raised by the audience really fell into the purview of the counties, and newly elected County Commissioner Sharon Ullman, who was in the audience, promised to have similar forums for the county, even if she was the only commissioner who showed up.

Deciding How Much Money We Have

Today the Joint Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee meets to help determine how much money it thinks the state of Idaho will make for the 2010 fiscal year -- that is, between July 2009 and June 2010.  

Typically the committee hears testimony from a number of economists and representatives from various industries. For example, it was hearing about the slowdown in construction last year that led the committee to be conservative about how much revenue to expect in 2008. 

This committee then makes a recommendation to the full Legislature about what to use as a target figure for revenue. It may or may not agree with what the Governor chooses.

Cliff Bayer, who is also on the budgeting committee (which spends the money) is co-chair of this committee. 

All the material for the committee is here: <http://legislature.idaho.gov/budget/EORAC/index.htm>

The material for last year's committee is here: <http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/budget/EORAC/2008/index.htm>

To watch the hearings streaming on the Internet, go to http://www.idahoptv.org/leglive/> 

You can also click on the link to the right in the blog roll.

Something amusing is that each legislator on the committee makes a prediction about the year's revenues (on a percentage basis) and the following year, those predictions are looked at to see who was the most accurate.  

District 21 Meeting

In preparation for the 2009 Legislative Session, which starts on Monday with the "State of the State" message by Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter, District 21 state Senator Russ Fulcher will be hosting a town meeting from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 8, at Reed Elementary School, 1670 N. Linder Road in Kuna. Special guests will include Legislative District 21 House Representatives Cliff Bayer and Rich Jarvis. Bring your ideas and comments.

Why it's hosted by Fulcher, with the representatives (including the newly elected Jarvis) only as "special guests," is unclear. Perhaps it's because Fulcher was the only one who was unchallenged in the November election?

Typically, these legislative meetings have been held at a school on the eastern end of Amity; Fulcher is holding this meeting in Kuna in response to constituent request.

Southwest Ada Neighborhood Association Meeting

After you go to the legislative meeting, then you can race on down to Victory Road and attend the quarterly Southwest Ada Neighborhood Association meeting.

The primary purpose of SANA is to inform. SANA helps inform people within Southwest Ada County area about issues and events that may affect the life style and property value of people within Southwest Ada County. In particular, the organization is focused on issues around forced annexation.

The meeting will be held at 8201 W. Victory Road, the South Building, at the South Entrance, at 6:45 PM .

As of November 7, 2007, all residents of southwest Ada County are eligible to be full members of SANA.  More specifically, South of I-84 to Snake River; West of Pleasant Valley Road to Ada-Canyon County Line.

Agenda for Thursday, Jan. 8th, 2009 
6:45 PM Open meeting with Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag with introduction of guests. 
7:00 PM Boise City Airport Director, Mr. Richard McConnell. 

• "The Boise Airport- Planning for the Future" 
  
• Accompanied by Mr. Matt Petaja, Airport Facilities Manager. 
  

7:45 PM Chad Dryden, Idaho Statesman Community Reporter. 

• May or may not address the audience. Mr. Dryden is visiting to get acquainted with SANA and its membership.