Education
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22 results found
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Consolidate School Districts
Consolidate school districts based on student population (average daily attendance), geographic location, and city/county.
62 votes -
Reduce School Administration
Reduce the number of mid to upper administrative personnel at the school district and school level.
34 votes -
Cover all state school districts' employees with state health insurance.
This allows all school districts to save huge sums of money by not having to negotiate for and pay the exorbitantly high costs for individual district health insurance plans. It also gives less expensive, better health coverage to ALL districts and their employees. Added Bonus: By covering education employees as a single state entity you effectively defang the "teachers union".
25 votes -
Start School Later
Schools should start later; studies show that most teenagers do need more sleep. By starting the schools an hour later kids will be able to sleep longer, giving them more energy and therefore possibly increasing test scores. Another perk of starting later is that students may be more inclined to eat breakfast, which has been proven to help with weight loss. One issue that may be presented is that parents’ work schedules may not work well for this bell schedule, but the elementary schools already start later than the high schools. Maybe the older kids can even help out with…
23 votes -
Eliminate kindergarten
$50,000,000 in savings to taxpayers is expected to result.
Another advantage to our economy would be the boost to small business. I can visualize new private kindergartens sprouting up all over the state, either run by or employing the displaced teachers.
But my real purpose in proposing this is to benefit children. I was a teacher myself and yet I can admit that our experiment in socialized education--yes, that’s what it is--has resulted in a society which today has a 44% illegitimacy rate, a church drop-out rate among 18-year-olds of 70%, and (among many other ills) a suicide rate among…20 votes -
Education Vouchers
Public education is estimated to cost $10K/student. Private education is estimated to cost $5K/student. If more students were to go to private schools, this would decrease the average daily attendance in public schools, thus decreasing general funding to education without affecting curriculum.
16 votes -
Institute a four-day week for schools
Where this has been tried, it has proved to be efficient and popular, (especially with children). They don't get so burned out, and they have more time to spend with their families. If parents object, remind them that the schools' purpose is not free babysitting. I imagine that more people would take advantage of the long weekends and travel, thus boosting Idaho tourism. That would be another plus for the children. It would all be good.
13 votes -
Cut pay for University Presidents. $300K in Idaho is equivalent to $500K in many other states.
The cost of living in Idaho is such that $300K is more than sufficient to live on for a University president. The University Presidents were all given raises this past year to make them "competitive" with Presidents of other Universities outside of Idaho. Truth is, money goes further here.
10 votes -
Doing the Small Things Go a Long Ways
As a student council member of a local school, I feel that there is too much money (and resources) squandered on the little things that could be allocated elsewhere. Each individual school wastes money to a certain degree. Leaving the electricity running, constantly purchasing “new and improved” educational tools such as computers that are intended to replace the older computers. By powering off computers and non necessities and using education tools to their fullest potential because there is no need to replace computers that are fully functioning, and software programs that are only a few years old. Note: There is…
9 votes -
Consolidate school districts
There are WAY too many school districts in Idaho. It's insane that we have over 100 districts. It can be done, just look at Utah.
9 votes -
Increase funding for state universities
Higher education pays long term dividends and is key in attracting and keeping high tech employers and jobs like those mentioned in the Governor's State of the State address, including Synoptek, Black Fin technologies, and others like them.
8 votes -
Computers in School
Sitting in my computer lab at my High School, I notice we just received 35 new computers with all the new attachments as well. Assuming the other 2 computer labs received the same that would mean we spent huge amounts of money on this new equipment. I was in this same computer lab only last week and I can report the computers we had before were operating effectively enough to manage every school assignment.
The amount of money spent on these computers could be saved and used for something else or at a different schools that needed it more.6 votes -
Standardized Blue Prints for Schools
I believe that the state of Idaho needs to make their building plans so that the school will fit the amount of kids they have going their. In the past some schools have not built their schools big enough to fit all of their students so in a short amount of time they have to rebuild the school in about 5 year when the building should last a lot longer than that. So to help eliminate this problem a standard set of blue prints should be made, but they should be made based on the population of the school district…
6 votes -
right to work should apply to teachers
idaho is a right towork state. Get rid of tenuare and you'll get rid of some bad teachers.
6 votes -
Cut Coach Pete's pay, bsu should be more than football
Congratulations to Boise State on their Fiesta Bowl win. However I find it ridiculous that Coach Pete's annual salary is $1million plus all his fringe benefits!
The priority of this university is clearly evident by where it places its emphasis and $$$- FOOTBALL.
Maybe the state should implement a coaching cap at $500,000 (which is still a huge salary). Anything above that is paid for by private fundraising. If Coach Pete is worth a $1 million dollars or more, let the bronco faithful pay his salary, NOT ME the taxpayer.
6 votes -
4 votes
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Create a standard set of school building blue prints
Local school boards are often responsible for the construction of new school buildings. Since this is often, not their area of expertise, how about creating a standard set of school building blue prints to be used by all school districts across the state. Blue prints drawing for elementary, middle, and high school would provide local school boards guidance on the realistic costs and time frames of a school building. The standardization of school building construction would save each local school board money as well as tax payers dollars.
4 votes -
Create a school voucher program
School vouchers would result converting the Dept. of Ed to an oversight body, much smaller than it is now. Vouchers would also eliminate the need for school districts owning and maintaining property and buildings.
3 votes -
Reduce admin costs by leverage video technology
Right now in the Meridian school district there are 3 assistants to the Superintendent covering North, South, East and West. These administrators provide oversight and a link to the District office. They spend their days on the road visiting each school. This is highly inefficient. There are about 36 schools and for oversight each administrator could handles 12 schools. A lot of time is lost in transit. From the District office to Lake Hazel is about 6 miles and takes 15 minutes each way. If 3 schools a day are visited in person there are considerable miles accumulated and valuable…
3 votes -
Clean house at Dept of Education
K-12 and Higher Education accounts for almost 67% of the general fund. Unfortunately this means that cuts HAVE to come from education. There is no way to get around this. Get an expert to come and look at the DOE and make recommendations to trim costs without affecting education. This "expert" shouldn't be from the education community but rather from an efficiency stand point and free from political apron strings. Unfortunately Sup. Luna is too busy with politics to effectively do his job.
3 votes
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