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Policy

Moon: Idahoans won't be ignored about Common Core

By Idaho Freedom Foundation staff
January 13, 2020
State Rep. Dorothy Moon | Guest opinion Common Core is exactly what we thought it was. Try telling that to the Idaho State Board of Education, though. The board’s members won’t hear you. Idaho adopted Common Core standards earlier this decade in hopes that the latest federal education package would solve what ails Idaho schools. […]
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2020 resolution: Let’s talk about what ails the public education system

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
December 27, 2019
One of the first lessons we learn as small children is: Honesty is the best policy Yet, in 2019, my unvarnished assessment of public schools — that government shouldn’t be in the education business — wound up being the quote that lit the media’s collective hair on fire. I also said that public schools are […]
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Education board didn’t hear Idahoans on Common Core

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
December 13, 2019
The optics behind the State Board of Education’s super-quiet decision late last month to reapprove Common Core education standards should not sit well with Idahoans. Residents petitioned the board for hearings on Common Core; five hearings were held across the state. Two days before Thanksgiving, the board reapproved the standards without so much as a […]
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Idaho Education Association’s real agenda: money and power

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
December 7, 2019
My friend and former newspaper colleague, Chuck Malloy, recently wrote an article about the Idaho Education Association that continues an Idaho media tradition of miscategorizing the IEA’s place in the state’s policy arena. The chief problem with Malloy’s commentary is the same one that plagues the Idaho news media generally: Writes cover the IEA as […]
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Help Idaho’s colleges and students by freezing tuition

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
November 15, 2019
Gov. Brad Little’s preemptive “spending reset,” to rein in state spending before the next economic downturn, is a good start to help Idaho taxpayers who could use a break from a decade of a growing state government. But other taxpayers—Idaho’s increasingly put-upon college and university students—also need relief. That relief can be achieved if Little […]
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Test scores continue to flounder while Ybarra celebrates ‘skinniest kid at fat camp’

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
November 1, 2019
If American public schools are ever going to improve, education officials need to be honest about where students are succeeding and where they aren’t. That’s mainly unsolicited advice for Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra, who found mostly joy and silver linings in the newest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). […]
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Diversity & discernment: lessons from the gridiron

By Idaho Freedom Foundation staff
October 23, 2019
By Dr. John M. Livingston | Medical Policy Adviser I grew up in Ohio in the 1960s. In Ohio and western Pennsylvania, football was, and remains today, a religion. I was lucky enough in the late ‘60s and early ‘70’s to play for two state championship high school football teams and one NCAA Division III […]
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Idaho welcomes diversity, but not the social justice version of it

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
October 4, 2019
About a hundred descendants of David and Yetta Cohen gathered for a family reunion in Georgia earlier this summer. Over the span of a few days, my aunts, uncles, and cousins, mostly Jews who live on the east coast, questioned me about Idaho, the state I’ve called home for nearly 25 years. Their curiosities were […]
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Sanders survives health scare thanks to American medical care

By Idaho Freedom Foundation staff
October 2, 2019
By Dr. John M. Livingston | Medical Policy Adviser As a retired surgeon, I was sorry to hear that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had an ischemic event—crescendo angina or a heart attack—while campaigning in Las Vegas. I know firsthand that it’s probably a relief to Sanders, his friends, family, and supporters he was being treated […]
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Trillhaase’s head fake avoids the truth about career ladder

By Fred Birnbaum
October 2, 2019
I have to hand it to the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s longtime foe, Marty Trillhaase. The liberal columnist is a master of the head fake. Let’s roll back the tape to reveal Trillhaase’s almost-brilliant deception, a sly trick he used to dodge a serious discussion that the Idaho Freedom Foundation wants to have about the state’s […]
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Salmon and Challis: You can speak out against Common Core this week

By Dustin Hurst
September 30, 2019
This week, you get to voice your opinion on the Common Core Content Standards.  Early next year, state lawmakers like Rep. Dorothy Moon of Stanley will decide if Idaho should re-authorize the standards.  Thus, the Idaho State Board of Education will hold a Common Core standards repeal hearing on Oct. 3 at the American Legion […]
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Public hearings show continued public disdain for Common Core

By Wayne Hoffman, IFF’s former President
August 30, 2019
The Idaho State Board of Education held hearings in August about Common Core education standards. Comments made by attendees prove that parents, students, business owners, and even some educators are not entirely supportive of the standards that Idaho adopted almost a decade ago. Interestingly, the standards are being backed chiefly by the state’s education labor […]
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