Idaho’s newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield joins host Melissa Davlin to discuss her budget presentation to JFAC this week, priorities for the legislative session, combatting pandemic learning loss, and the ongoing school choice debate.
Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports:
I wanted to ask you about your legislative priorities. This is your 23rd day in office, and you’ve entered office in the middle of a lot of massive education debates that are already in progress and some that are just getting started. But what’s on your agenda?
Debbie Critchfield, Superintendent of Public Instruction:
You’re right about education taking up most of the space for the conversation, and thankfully, having paid attention and been really active as a candidate, that was always a part of what I was talking about. So although it’s the 23rd day officially in office, there’s been a number of things that I’ve been talking about and now I’m in a position to work on.
Career technical education tops my list. Actually, I’ve got some that are tied, I guess. Career technical education, 7-12 grade literacy is going to be a huge part of what I talk about, and I want to elevate math to that same level of literacy. We’ve seen some concerning declines, particularly in grades 5-8 when it comes to our math achievement levels, and so let’s start talking about that.
Many of the things are items that schools have been talking about for a long time, whether it’s pay for classified staff or teacher pay, facility issues, school safety, how we addressed our special ed populations, gifted and talented programs. I think there’s a number of places that we’ll be able to to make some positive changes.
IR:
Let’s start with literacy and math. This is a conversation that we’ve been having since before the pandemic. And of course, we’ve seen some learning loss and some really concerning test scores since hybrid learning and learning from home. How do you raise those scores?
Critchfield:
Well, I have my ideas that I actually think are supported by research and frankly, what schools are already doing around the state. When we look at successful scores in school districts, there is a recipe that isn’t secret. One of the things that I want to do is connect our districts who are successful to those that are still trying to figure out, you know, what should we be doing, what kinds of curriculum should we be investing in, how are we training and preparing our teachers.
I’m going to really talk repeatedly about how we look at the science of reading. So, “the science of reading” is not a book, but it’s a way that we teach teachers so that they can teach reading. It is an important part of how districts choose their own curriculum. As you know, local districts are making those those choices, which is fantastic. We want to support that. But we want — from a Department of Education perspective, and for me as a Superintendent — if you’re going to put money into these things and we’re trying to improve the reading scores, then we’ve got to look at the science of reading. Now that’s one side of it. For me, the other side is how are we preparing our teachers while they’re going through their colleges of education so that they are ready to hit the classroom with what they need?
IR:
Do most Idaho teachers come from Idaho universities? In other words, how much control do we have over that career prep to get them ready for the classroom?
Critchfield:
You know, I don’t know the percentage of how many go through our traditional routes, but I do know that as a member of the State Board of Education — who oversees our colleges and universities — that I will have an opportunity with the Board to influence those types of things. I’ve already reached out, and had months ago, to several of our deans of the colleges of education to say, “Look, I’ve been on the campaign trail for 18 months now. This is what I’m hearing from teachers who say, I wish I knew, if only I had known, or if only I had been prepared in these ways.” And then districts who also are hiring — our new people whom we want to have, teachers continue to come into our districts — say, you know, “There’s a level of investment that we have to make when we get teachers into the district, things that they didn’t learn.” So to me, it’s not just one thing with the reading, but focusing on the teachers and how we support them and how we provide them with the effective tools.
IR:
If we already know what works, why aren’t we doing it on a universal level?
Critchfield:
What a fantastic question. That’s one of those kind of head scratching moments that you say these things don’t connect. We see where successful districts are and what they’re doing. We look nationally and we see what works. So how come… you know, fill in the blank.
Now, I can’t provide an answer for every local decision, but what I can supply an answer to — and my conclusion — is we have lacked the leadership at the state level. Now, what I’ve learned in my three weeks’ time in the Department of Education is that there are pockets of places where, if a teacher needed some sort of intervention or strategy to help a student who was on a specialized learning plan, that information was provided: “Okay, well, if nothing else works, use this.” Well, the ‘if nothing else works, use this’ thing was the thing we need to be using first! And I repeatedly heard from teachers, “Where has this been? You know, we need to make this available to everybody. We need to make sure it gets out.” So I’m going to become the state or town crier on talking about the science of reading.
IR:
You requested some new positions for early literacy. Can you talk a little bit about what you envision those positions doing?
Critchfield:
Yes. I got a copy of the org chart — which I actually printed off the website after the election — to understand how are all of these things broken out. It was interesting, I guess, for me to look and see that kind of buried amongst all these blocks and squares — and there’s 130 people that work for the Department of Education — that kind of over to the side, underneath several other things, was a position for literacy. And I thought, “Well, if we’re we’re trying to get the results, we need someone who is leading and driving what’s happening in the state.” And so one of the things in reorganizing and restructuring is to make that a more prominent position, and then recognizing that one person for the entire state — 115 school districts and 70 public charter schools — that that one person is going to be able to facilitate every single change that we have with our school leadership? Not going to happen. So that was the impetus for requesting another position, recognizing that we want to we want to build this, and we’ve got to have people to make the program.
IR:
There’s been a lot of discussion about a teacher pay raise to help with retention, and for good reason, but they’re not the only ones who make a school run. The governor has also proposed a 5% pay raise for classified employees like bus drivers, kitchen staff secretaries, paraprofessionals, and tech workers, absolutely critical for a school to successfully operate. But is that 5% going to be enough to close the gap between what these workers make in the school district versus what they could make in the public sector?
Critchfield:
I think it gets us closer for now, but I also think that salary portion of the school operations is something we’re always going to be chasing. When we look back at 2008 and 2009 — when schools had to cut back in every way, shape and form — we’ve been working slowly back to be able to get there. I think that this is a gigantic leap in the right direction. My concern always with these things is that we don’t think that it’s done. “Well, we took care of that, so we don’t need to ever worry about that again.” We’re always going to be, we hope, with a thriving state and a competitive work environment. We make this a priority, we put the money there, and then make sure we’re monitoring so that our schools don’t find themselves seven or ten years from now in the exact same position.
IR:
How much does the cost of living and the availability of housing also play into this conversation about employees being able to afford continue working for the districts?
Critchfield:
It’s number one for folks that I talk to that want to stay in education, or wish they could stay in education, were it not for the economic challenges that come with that. You bring up another interesting point of this with the housing. Something else that I learned — and have observed myself, coming from a small rural community — many times it’s not even that you can or can’t afford a home, but the availability of a home. Particularly as you get out outside of the Treasure Valley and more of our urban areas around the state. Trying to connect a new young teacher or a young family, or even someone who wants to move into the community because they like the culture that’s there, many times those individuals will say to the principal or to the superintendent, “I’d love to come here, but I don’t know where I’m going to live.”
IR:
Let’s talk about a school choice. We know that school choice nationwide is really gaining momentum. We also know that we are going to see school choice legislation this session. What do you want to see in those proposals?
Critchfield:
I’d like to see something that doesn’t come out of the current public schools budget. Something that is money that would never have gone to the public schools in the first place. I have many times referenced the Empowering Parents grants as an example of a vehicle that we currently have in the state. That money does not come to public schools, and so they’re not going to miss it in that sense. For those that are proponents of some sort of a universal ESA, they say, “Well, we don’t want to defund public schools.” I appreciate and respect that that’s how they’re talking about it, but there’s only so many ways to slice the same pie.
IR:
An ESA being a education savings account.
Critchfield:
Yes, thank you. Education is — you know, acronyms all over the place. That for me is one of one of the conditions upon which we look as a state at how to do that. The other two are that we have some type of accountability. I think that should be an expectation. It’s an expectation as we send taxpayer money to our local school districts that there is a transparency — and that would be that third part of it — of how that money is being used.
I talk to every dot along the same spectrum of this school choice discussion. I would start out by saying I am 100% in favor of, and a proponent of, school choice. For many, the only definition of school choice is if you give all of the money to the parent. I think that that’s where we talk around each other and to the side of each other, instead of saying, “Look, we all support school choice. How do we do this realistically that it doesn’t impact public schools, particularly our rural schools?”
IR:
You know, I’m curious about accountability and transparency, both with the funding and also with student achievement. Let’s start with the funding portion. How do you envision that transparency and accountability looking like?
Critchfield:
If the money were given directly to families? Well, I think that it would have to be something very similar to what we do with our public schools, that there’s some type of reporting back “This is how we use the money.” Now, it may not be to the level and the degree that you’re putting every data point like this is the date that my child took a test. You know, I don’t think it’s something like that, but to understand that the parent honestly use that money, then to go find the right educational environment for their child. I know there’s some bills out there. To my knowledge, I have not seen that addressed, but I haven’t seen everything and I haven’t scrutinized it to that level.
IR:
How about student achievement? How do you monitor content standards and also that students are meeting the same kind of goals that we would want them to in a public school setting?
Critchfield:
I don’t know the answer to that, to be honest. Right now, we don’t regulate that. If you are outside of the public system and you’re not taking taxpayer dollars, if you homeschool or private school — obviously, private schools have ways that they communicate back to their parents — but for our homeschool families, that’s something that they address. There’s a reason that they’ve left the system, because they didn’t want to be a part of that. I completely respect that and will protect their right to be able to do that. This conversation really comes down to how do we responsibly say, “Here is this money. We want you to educate your child with moneys from taxes, and to know where it’s being directed.”
IR:
You said that you feel like these two camps are talking past each other. You don’t want public schools to be harmed in this process, you don’t want any money taken out of that stream going to them. However there are a lot of people who want that, who want those education savings accounts and want the money that would otherwise be going to their child’s public school to go to their education savings account. If you’re on these diametrically opposed sides, how do you plan on bridging that gap?
Critchfield:
Well, I’m going to continue to offer suggestions, as I have. For some, they have a philosophical point that they just they don’t want to change. And that’s okay, because I’m at a philosophical point myself, so I get that. Somehow we’ve got to find that middle place. Again, looking at programs that we already have in place. For example, the Advanced Opportunities program is moneys that are available to 7-12 graders that they can use anywhere they want, including private school students can use that money. Now, there is a reporting and accountability that comes with that. But that is another example of Idaho saying, “We recognize that your child may want to get a jump start outside of high school. Here’s how you can do that.” So what vehicles do we already have in place that are demonstrating a commitment to support parent choice? Those are the places that I look. What do we already have that’s existing that we can expand or tweak, with our moneys that don’t go directly to schools?
IR:
Do you think we’re going to get there this session?
Critchfield:
I don’t know. I mean, we’re three weeks in and, you know, I’m hearing about bills coming forward. I know that this is one of the topics of the day, and those parents who feel very strongly about it on either side are actively trying to persuade legislators with their viewpoint. I think there’s more discussion to come.
IR:
You mentioned that one of your top priorities is also career technical education. Understanding that you’re the Superintendent of Public Instruction focused on grades K-12, you still have your eyes on that Go On rate and that career readiness. When you’re looking at your relationship with the State Board of Education, with the higher education institutes, Department of Labor, Department of Commerce, private industry, what does that perfect setup look like to you?
Critchfield:
Well, it’s a collaboration piece. I think that’s one of the pieces that we’ve been missing. The Superintendent and the Department of Education side has been a missing player or not at the table when these conversations are had — I would throw in the Workforce Development Council added to that — as a way to facilitate the conversations of, “Here’s what industry needs, here’s the preparation and the skills that they’re looking for. Who within the system can help satisfy those needs?”
I don’t want 7-12 grades to be overlooked. I think that we need to really think about how we transform the high school experience for a junior and a senior, and make it less about seat time and more about the application of knowledge. How do we get that that CTE piece more emphasized, and how do we create opportunities within graduation pathways that are existing now, so that students see that there are more options? And I don’t want to downgrade college. I have a college education, that was the choice that I made. But I want to make sure that all the choices get brought up to the same playing field, and that our students see when they are going to school, they’re like, “Okay, I see where I fit into all of this.”
IR:
What does that look like in a place like Leadore where they are, you know, 45 minutes away from the next nearest school district. They don’t have the resources to have a nursing program or something along those lines. How do you make sure that the rural schools don’t get left behind in this conversation?
Critchfield:
Well, I think it’s two things. I think that one is financial. There can be a financial barrier to all of these things, but that may not be the only thing. What I’m finding is it is not the only thing. We can also unknowingly, or just with unintended consequences, limit the programing that takes place at these schools because of policy barriers. As I talked to school districts, many of our districts do not receive the added cost funding that comes with some of the career technical programing because it’s limited either through federal funds or there’s not enough money at the state level.
To me, having this conversation about how do we increase CTE in Leadore — which would be the perfect example, and likely one of the places where that’s what the community wants their students to be exposed to — then we have to look at that policy side. Are we doing something to keep them from accomplishing their goals? And then how do we come in with the money to get them started?
IR:
One last question. What are your thoughts on the governor’s Idaho Launch proposal, $8,500 for graduating Idaho seniors who stay in Idaho and go to a public institution?
Critchfield:
Well, for what I’ve described to you with the CTE, I see those as as companions for each other. We want our students to be the most prepared to make good decisions when they exit high school and have the opportunity to take advantage of that money. How do we do that? Well, we make sure that they’re exposed to good programs while we have them in the public school setting.
IR:
Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, thank you so much for joining us.
Critchfield:
Thank you.