Through a combination of shoe-leather reporting, creative crowdsourcing and innovative storytelling, Becca and Asia documented how restrictive policies in Idaho created a funding crisis that has left students learning in freezing classrooms and overcrowded schools, with leaky ceilings, failing plumbing and discolored drinking water.
The reason: Idaho spends less, per student, on schools than any other state. And it is one of only two states that require two-thirds of voters to approve a bond to repair or replace school facilities. Despite a 2005 Idaho Supreme Court ruling that the state’s funding system for school facilities was unconstitutional, the Legislature had not taken steps to lower the vote threshold or make significant investments for nearly two decades.
The “State of Disrepair” series had enormous impact: Idaho Gov. Brad Little cited the Statesman and ProPublica’s work in calling for $2 billion in state funding to help schools repair or replace their buildings, declaring it “priority No. 1.” Despite early skepticism from lawmakers that change was even possible in an extremely conservative legislature, prominent Republicans got behind it, and the bill passed in March.
This story started with tips that Becca heard about Idaho’s aging school buildings. Becca suspected the problems weren’t isolated. So, she began to dig. She analyzed data and found that Idaho’s restrictive voting threshold meant fewer than half of school bonds passed, even though 80% of them would have been approved had a simple majority been required, as in most states. She also uncovered that legislators hadn’t funded a full facilities assessment in nearly 30 years.
Reporting this story was challenging. Idaho’s Office of School Safety and Security denied Becca’s records request for school safety reports because, she was told, they included emergency response plans and were protected documents under the state’s public records law. Another state department wanted to charge Becca hundreds to thousands of dollars for school inspection reports. She instead requested reports from a handful of schools, but the inspections only contained problems the inspector could see, such as broken lights on exit signs; these inspectors don’t go into crawl spaces or look for structural deficiencies, such as problems with the foundations, plumbing or roofs.
Because the state hadn’t assessed facilities and school inspections were cursory, Becca had no paper trail to follow, leaving her and Asia to do the difficult work the state hadn’t done. We began the series in April 2023 (the second link) and continued to report for the next year. Over the course of that reporting, the reporters built trust among teachers and students in underserved rural areas, surveyed superintendents and visited schools across the state. That work resulted in a visual story that made it undeniable that the problems were occurring statewide and spurred the governor and legislature to act.
