Reform is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, as is this formal description of Senate Bill 1184: “To ensure the state can educate more students at a higher level with limited resources, the state must reform and modernize the educational system. The Students Come First legislation reprioritizes statutory requirements to strategically invest in Idaho’ s educators and technology, and increases transparency for Idaho’ s public school system.”

The specifics for this measure, set up as the third of three major bills backed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, are a devil, though. The Senate floor vote on this bill split somewhat along partisan lines – most of the Republicans voted for, and all the Democrats against – but the strong debate came from the Republicans in opposition. They were the senators who burrowed most into the details, and their implications.

The best probably was from Senator Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, co-chair of the legislature’s budget committee. The bill will “disrupt” public school budgeting for years, he warned: “We will put the major portion of our public school budget on autopilot.” He found a string of budgetary and fiscal issues in the bill, and came up with a string of other specific problems too. He had conservative arguments against it: It creates new entitlements. There was this fascinating nugget: The bill allows (as part of the formal course requirements) students to take any accredited (term not much defined) on-line courses, with or without approval from the local school board. (You can imagine what might happen.) There were also some fine takes from Senators Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Denton Darrington, R-Declo. (In brief comments, Senator John Andreason, R-Boise, remarked that his constituents had urged him to vote against the bill by a margin of 95-5; and so he did.)

The passion was on their side.

The pro- arguments centered on the need to bring more technology into public education, but that was a point no one disputes (certainly not here). The details were more typically glossed over.

The bill passed, somewhat closely, 20-15.