Do legislators share Kempthorne’s vision?
By PAT MURPHY
Idaho legislators reserved their most
robust applause during Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s State of the State speech
Monday when he tossed them a piece of political red meat. He vowed to wage
war in the courts against the feds over planned introduction of grizzlies
into the state and any tinkering by Washington with Idaho’s dominion
over natural resources.
But that wasn’t the least important
passage of his speech.
His most eloquent proposals for legislative
approval, and with far more enduring importance to Idaho than lawsuits
against Washington, involved education and criminal justice.
His proposal for funds to reward secondary
education teachers; to work with industry on attracting and retaining
exceptional college faculty, targeting improved reading and math skills
for the state’s children, and recognizing the need for rehabilitation,
rather than punishment, in criminal justice will go a long way in
achieving several ends.
First, it will lift Idaho’s schools out
of the ranks of the cellar dwellers and create an important, 21st
century national reputation for the state.
Second, excellence in education is an
automatic magnet for new industry and research laboratories in need of
well-educated workers.
And, third, therein may be part of the
solution to Idaho’s most crushing budget and social problem -- the
nation’s fastest growing prison inmate population.
Kempthorne wisely said he wouldn’t ask
for funds for a new men’s prison. Instead, he wants funds to attack one
of the root causes of more inmates -- drug abuse.
An estimated 87 percent of the state’s
prison population is involved in substance abuse, he said. By launching a
vigorous treatment problem inside prisons, as well as alternative
sentencing programs in an expanded drug court program, the costly demand
for new prison beds would be drastically reduced if not eliminated.
Furthermore, some studies show that the
funds poured generously into education, the fewer funds required later for
prisons, since better-educated young people whose hands and minds aren’t
idle tend to steer avoid criminal behavior.
The question, of course, is whether a
majority of Idaho legislators share Kempthorne’s vision.
Clearly, some Idaho politicians are driven
by a tough-on-crime mentality that instinctively demands more and more
prisons, regardless of the bankrupting cost of that strategy or the
futility of correcting behavior.
A few others still are hostile to creative
funding for education: they believe public schools waste money as it is
and deserve no more, and teachers somehow are subversive influences on
young minds.
But Kempthorne has powerful allies for his
programs – the growing ranks of high-tech industry CEOs in Idaho who
know the importance of education for workers as well as the children of
their employees.
The governor is charting ways for Idaho to
claim a place among states that think and plan bolder and with their eyes
on bigger prizes in the future.
