A Parent’s Real-World Example: Imagine this: you live in Boise, enroll your kids, and get used to the Boise School District’s app. You upload medical records, contact information, emergency numbers — your family’s whole life into the system. Then life changes, you move to Nampa, and suddenly you are told to download a brand-new app. Start over. Re-enter everything. No integration. No continuity.
The Problem: No Universal Tracking: That single example highlights the real issue: Idaho has no universal way to track education. Every district uses its own app, its own system, and its own reporting format. So if you are the governor or the head of education, how can you possibly manage the system statewide? You cannot. There is no way to pull real-time data across all districts without different logins, different software, and different reporting structures.
Where Is the Public Accountability?: I am sure every district has reports. Teachers and administrators see pieces of the data inside their systems. But here is the real question: where is this information in public form, across all school districts, on a daily basis? Where can parents, taxpayers, and community members go to see homework missed, attendance rates, or other key measures that show the activity of education?
That is accountability. Not hidden inside dozens of separate apps. Not buried in requests. Visible for everyone to see. If this does not exist, and right now it does not appear to, then Idaho education is missing one of the most basic tools of management.
Results Information vs. Activity Information: Now, to be fair, Idaho does publish educational data. The Idaho Report Card shows test results, student growth, and graduation rates. The Educational Analytics System of Idaho (EASI) collects statistics across K–12, higher education, and the workforce. Sites like Idaho Ed Trends and annual district reports also provide performance summaries.
But all of these are results information — not activity information. They show what happened months ago. They do not tell us what is happening in classrooms today. Results data may be useful for long-term analysis, but it does nothing to help leaders manage education as a daily investment.
Education as a Business: Education is Idaho’s single greatest investment, but it is not being managed like one. In any successful business, activity is tracked daily, effectiveness is measured, and results follow. Idaho education? We end up relying on test scores months later. Test scores are the symptom, not the cause.
Activity × Effectiveness = Results. That is the business formula. If 100 students missed homework yesterday, which schools carried the highest share? Which classrooms consistently fall behind? How many days of instruction were lost across the state this week? Those are the questions a real accountability system should be able to answer.
The Money Problem: This is not just about accountability. It is about money. By letting every district buy its own system, Idaho throws away its collective bargaining power. Instead of negotiating as one state for a cost-effective, statewide platform, we pay full price many times over. That is waste. That is inefficiency.
Politics Over Performance: At the macro level, fragmentation turns into politics. Districts act like fiefdoms, choosing different systems for local reasons, while accountability disappears. The business of education becomes the politics of education. In the process, students are treated like data points for test scores instead of participants in a system that should be measured by daily growth.
A Parent’s Perspective: I see this as a parent with three kids in Idaho schools: one in middle school, one in high school, and one in college. They have been in public schools and a charter school, and across every stage the lesson is clear. Idaho education is not being managed. It is just being run.
The Challenge: If education truly is Idaho’s top priority, then let us prove it by managing it like a business, not just running it like a test.
2 replies on “Idaho Education: One Family, Many Apps, No Accountability”
I have to point out the converse to your argument: that “state-wide” programs, applications, etc. force us into a one-size-fits-all education policy. If it isn’t working now, institutionalizing that only destroys any hope of correction.
I’m a father of _thirteen_ and my wife and I finally pulled our kids out of the public schools to homeschool the last couple of years. And it has been nothing short of amazing: my kids regularly score in the 99% percentile on ISAT’s and standardized testing, my kids read 3+ grade levels above, do math 2+ grade levels above, etc.
My experience has been that the public school system is horribly broken. Institutionalizing it further only disadvantages more children. Until Idaho gets its act together and starts educating rather than indoctrinating, standardizing is the WORST path forward.
Thank you for your thoughtful response and for sharing your experience as a father of thirteen. Your success with homeschooling is remarkable, and I have deep respect for any parent who takes that level of ownership in their children’s education.
You make an important point about the dangers of one-size-fits-all systems. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we standardize how children learn, I’m suggesting that we standardize how we track whether learning is happening. Those are very different things.
A statewide accountability and data system doesn’t have to dictate curriculum, values, or local decision-making. It simply creates visibility — allowing parents, teachers, and policymakers to see the same information at the same time. Without that visibility, we’re left with politics instead of performance.
Think of it this way: the goal isn’t to make every district the same. The goal is to ensure that every district knows what’s working and what isn’t in real time. Homeschooling works for your family because you can see progress daily and make immediate adjustments. That same principle of awareness is exactly what’s missing from Idaho’s public education system.
If Idaho truly wants to improve education, we need more local freedom in teaching and more statewide accountability in tracking outcomes. Freedom and visibility aren’t opposites; they’re partners in achieving better results for every student.