Much has been said about the report on Idaho education by Boise State University, including a recent Scroll article. The report contains many inaccuracies and unfounded statements that lead to misconceptions about Idaho education.

Three BSU professors claim that school age children not enrolled in public schools are “missing” and therefore “educationally neglected.”

However, the authors have no data or statistics to support their claims. Professor Kelly (BSU) is calling all students not registered with local school districts “missing.” He implies that if they are not registered, they are educationally neglected. He further equates “missing” and “educationally neglected” with home schoolers.

Contrary to Mr. Kelly’s assumption that home schoolers are educationally neglected, many homeschoolers in Idaho voluntarily test (at their own expense) with the standardized national tests, the ITBS and the ITED. Why didn’t the BSU authors refer to the test scores of Idaho’s home-schooled students in their report? They are easily accessible through the State Board of Education or any of our senators or representatives who are presented with a statistical report each legislative session. Could it be because the data is shocking?

For the past decade, Idaho home-schooled children have scored 30 percentile points higher academically than their public school counterparts. For example, the average composite score of Idaho’s home-schooled students in 2005 on the ITBS/ITED was the 84th national percentile ranking.

Compare this with the average score of Idaho’s public school students whose last available score in 2001 on the same test was the 54th national percentile ranking. Of course the national average by definition is the 50th percentile.

The numbers of “missing children” in the state of Idaho are also seriously flawed.

BSU professors compared federal census data to the number of children registered with public schools to come up with their number of “missing children.” This method is questionable, considering that the professors reported nine states had more students registered in public schools than the census indicated even existed in the states.

The BSU study also misrepresents our state’s constitution. The Idaho Constitution requires a tax-funded government education be available to its citizens, but it does not require them to use it. Nor does it give local school districts power to regulate their competition (i.e., to regulate alternative methods of education such as private schools or home schools).

Gratefully, we live in a state that still recognizes the freedoms we enjoy as parents to choose the method of educating our children, whether public, private or home school. We should be, however, concerned that the Department of Education be held accountable for all public-schooled children falling below grade levels in our state, since we — the tax payers — have employed the government to ensure the success of our public-schooled children.

Additionally, we should be concerned about $78,000 dollars appropriated to three BSU professors for an unnecessary and poorly done study.