OPINION: With new plank, irony is at the heart of Idaho GOP’s ignorance

The rich irony of the situation eluded the gathered delegates in the auditorium at North Idaho College on the final day of the Idaho GOP biennial meeting. More than half of them smiled and chatted happily, pleased with themselves for voting in a new plank on the Idaho Republican Party platform that defunded postsecondary programs. The majority overruled those who challenged this move, including seasoned career-technical educators, educated professionals and elected officials. One delegate explained that education beyond basic reading and writing is not necessary and the free market would provide whatever was needed.

How naively ignorant.

That mindset might have worked for most of human history, but not now. We live in an age of technological innovation that requires agile minds with robust academic preparation to fully participate. If upheld by the GOP executive committee, this new platform stance advocates gutting higher education and robbing Idaho’s children of opportunity and the ability to compete for jobs in the United States’ free-market economy.

I expect that defunding higher education would go the same as defunding the police — disastrously poorly. Imposing these policies will force students to leave Idaho to seek opportunities elsewhere, with the downstream effect of crippling the economy as employers struggle to find a skilled, educated workforce. Data trends show that Idaho already loses many of her best and brightest students to out-of-state institutions of higher learning each year. Many young adults cannot find jobs that pay a living wage without further education, and they cannot fund post-secondary education on their own. Nearly all corporate, technology, health care and even many ranch and agriculture jobs require a bachelor’s degree. It’s a bleak future indeed for Idaho’s children if manual labor is the only opportunity envisioned for them. Employers will import the educated workers they need, and Idaho’s native sons and daughters will become second-class citizens in their own home state, unable to find good-paying jobs or afford a home.

It’s already happening.

Housing prices in Idaho have soared well beyond income-based affordability thresholds with out-of-state, and even out-of-country investors snatching up single-family homes and driving up prices. According to Redfin Corp., the Seattle-based real estate brokerage, median home prices sit at $488,000 — or 9.6 times higher than the average salary of $51,000 and 6.8 times higher than median household income of $72,000, as reported by the Census Bureau. Only 32.3% of Idahoans have earned bachelor’s degrees or higher despite Fordham Institute data showing that workers with bachelor’s degrees earn 68% more per year than those with a high school diploma.

In the Boise area, workers holding a bachelor’s degree earn 84% higher wages than workers with just a high school education. Hopefully, the anti-education GOP convention delegates can work through this pretty simple math problem to see the solution. Idaho requires an educated workforce to compete as a relevant player in our high-tech, free-market economy.

Most Idaho voters see this need and consistently vote to support quality education while maintaining one of the lowest per-student expenditure and among the lowest tax rates in the nation. Voters know that doctors, nurses, therapists, engineers, lawyers and other critical professionals who help Idaho’s people and economy thrive cannot simply read a how-to manual and open for business.

It’s profoundly disturbing that so many people don’t seem to understand this. Ironically, it’s probably because of their inferior education.

Small businesses are indeed important for Idaho’s economy but not everyone has interest or ability to run one. Economies thrive with a robust mix of skilled labor, small businesses and educated professionals.

Destroying the opportunity for students to obtain local training for academic, professional, career and technical education according to their interests is not the way forward. It violates the principles contained in Idaho’s Constitution, which ensures a system of free public education, and imposes a class system where only the wealthy can afford advanced education. It also increases student indebtedness since many scholarship and financial assistance programs can only be used at publicly supported institutions, not private.

We shall see if the current GOP leadership, which speaks passionately of freedom with one hand while imposing authoritarian control with the other will use this new platform position to censure legislators who listen to Idaho voters to support higher education. I hope not, because destroying public education is not a Republican principle and we, the people of Idaho who want a bright future for our children, deserve better.

Beasley, of Moscow, is an active Republican who currently is pursuing a doctoral degree in education from the University of Idaho.