Op-Ed: Critchfield Ponders ‘New Culture’ for Education
By Chuck Malloy • August 28, 2022Debbie Critchfield of Oakley, the Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, isn’t running against the two-term incumbent that she defeated in May’s primary election. But she makes it clear that, if elected, it will not be business as usual in Idaho’s Department of Education.
Critchfield is telling voters – especially Republican educators who jumped ship and voted for Democratic candidates in the last three elections for state superintendent – that they can feel comfortable with the GOP candidate this time around.
State Superintendent Sherri Ybarra won two elections by the smallest of margins, with both races being declared “too close to call” the morning after the election. She was the only Republican who had any trouble winning races for the state constitutional offices.
Critchfield looks to win in a more convincing fashion against Democrat Terry Gilbert of Boise, a retired teacher.
“There were two attitudes about her,” Critchfield said of Ybarra. “People either knew nothing about her, or there were high negatives attached to her. A lot of promises were made, and nothing happened, or she took credit for what the governors or Legislature did. Legislators were frustrated. They want someone who will bring ideas to them and someone who will work with them when they have ideas.”
Critchfield had more than 30 Republican legislators endorsing her campaign in the primary and, if elected, she thinks she’ll have appeal with some Democratic lawmakers as well.
“I will have a different approach,” says Critchfield, a former president of the State Board of Education. “There will be a different culture in the department. I will work with the governor, and I will need support from all branches of government. A key part also is the working relationship with the Board of Education, which is overlooked a lot. It was extremely difficult for board members to work with (Ybarra).”
Regardless of who wins – whether it’s Critchfield or Gilbert – Idaho will have a new state superintendent leading the Department of Education. But as Critchfield says, the challenges of the job go beyond building working relationships with educators and political leaders.
“The bottom line for education in Idaho is that people are frustrated, and the frustration is not only with parents. Teachers are frustrated. Kids are frustrated and we can’t afford in any sense of the word to do business as usual,” Critchfield says. “We’ve got to bring education into the modern context. How do we make it more relevant for students who are graduating and getting jobs? How do we provide the tools for the modern classroom and our teachers? How are we interacting with our parents and communities to reflect their values? There are long-standing issues that are going to take solutions that, in some cases, we haven’t even thought of yet – everything from funding to school safety and security.”
Critchfield doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. But living in a rural community, she knows there are talented people throughout the state who are willing to work on solutions. Critchfield is the public information officer for Cassia County schools and is a former school board member for the district.
Her opponent has talked about a trigger law that would devote at least half of the state’s surplus to education and is backing the Quality Education Act promoted by Reclaim Idaho. Critchfield rejects both ideas.
On the issue of the state surplus, Critchfield says, “to say that half should go to education … I don’t know what that number is. One of the issues we’ve had over time is that we don’t target where that money is going. We can’t just say that education needs more money. For what? And where? We have been putting millions of more dollars into education, yet people are still frustrated with the outcome.”
On the education initiative, she said, “I don’t believe we should have a massive tax hike with the kind of surplus we have and people dealing with inflation. That’s not the solution.”
Those are topics that can, and should be, kicked around in debates. And Critchfield, to her credit, plans to discuss these issues with Gilbert in televised debates. She says she’s also anxious to hear how Gilbert “stands up” for policies imposed by the Biden administration.
Yes, debates do serve a valuable purpose.
ctmalloy@outlook. Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com
This Op-Ed was submitted by Chuck Malloy. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.
Tags: Chuck Malloy, Debbie Critchfield, Department of Education, Education, Prop 1
11 thoughts on “Op-Ed: Critchfield Ponders ‘New Culture’ for Education”
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School Choice, the money must follow the child, not Idaho’s tainted, corrupt public schools.
Will the new boss be any different than the old boss? Fro a change we need to get the unions out of government employment and have the parents pay an education fee . parents will them have skin in the game.
Ban government involvement in education in any way.
Bring back economics, ethics, civics and teaching the US Constitution. Focus on the basics- reading, writing(yes by hand and typing) and mathematics, let parents choose the school with vouchers, no teacher union money to political parties. Reduce the size and cost of the bloated administration. 75% of school budget should go to teacher salaries not administrators; not the other way around. Vote no on spending more of your money on system that never seems to get fixed with ever larger budgets.
There are many very viable comments on how to fix the education system but one thing for sure is that throwing millions of dollars at it ISN’T the way. Back to the basic Reading, Writing, and Math would be a good start. And we darn sure DO NOT need socialization programs in schools. And I don’t feel that Critchfield would fix any of the problems with a “progressive” system.
Know when education will have “enough” money? When they have it all.
Educational “funding” is a bottomless pit. An insatiable monster. Education will NEVER be “fully funded” because that much money simply doesn’t exist.
Years ago the promise was the Lottery would resolve “school funding”, and now we have endless bond levies, a highly disproportionate educational budget (63% of ALL State funding goes to education) – not to mention all the other sources of income education gets from the Federal Government, private donations, etc. And it’s still not enough. Now, in addition to all that, according to our liberal imports, “education” now needs substantially higher taxes on everyone to continue feeding it’s enormous appetite.
We, as taxpayers have allowed our elected representatives to stand by while this happened and fundamentally do nothing about it. Time to put on the brakes and get “education” back under control.
Ms. Critchfield needs to be clear in her campaign that she supports conservative basics of good education. She needs to spell these out and describe how she plans to encourage school boards around the state to clean up their act and get students to be proficient in reading, writing, math, history, geography and science. No more teachers who think they are the pals and peers of kindergarteners. No more personal sharing. No more woke lessons.
The education system has a responsibility to teach students how to think independently, to research and compare sources, not just following what someone says, and to communicate factual information about the world, our society and our history.
If Ms. Critchfield fails to communicate policies like these to the voters, she can expect them to stay away from her on election day. I don’t recommend that but it is a reality.
Great comment Woodturner!
I do hope she’s conservative, yet the hunch is she is in little/bedke/winder’s back pocket which won’t bode well for the kids in our state.
I like your comment. Pretty much spot on.
Critchfield was the spoiler run to block Branden Durst. I don’t trust her to carry out genuine principles of liberty based Idahoans….but she will receive the default vote vs the Dem.
The same tactic was used against Dorothy Moon.
The same old mantra from the mouth of Debbie Critchfield. We need to “rethink” our program and make it relevant. Then why is an education filled with the so-called science of ecology and not chemistry along with biology and physics relevant. How about requiring grammar or at least 2 years of Latin. They don’t even know the classics in literature, nor study ancient civilization from nomadic to agrarian society. It has left a deep gap in their knowledge base to deal with the problems of current society issues. Look at Athens where the soldiers were farmers fighting constant wars with Sparta a warring society. Finally the collapse came but “demos” was a gift to later societies.