Clayton Trehal is running for a seat in the Idaho legislature.

He is a veteran educator.

He has sent me some of his columns, and I read them with fascination.

Clayton teaches in an online charter school, which, as readers of this blog know, are not necessarily at the top of my hit parade.

I am not as enthusiastic as he is about ranking schools by how many AP courses they offer or how many kids pass.

If I were in Idaho, I’d be inclined to emphasize the fact that Idaho students have made significant gains on NAEP in both reading and math, in fourth grade and eighth grade, while many other states did not.

I don’t like the assumption that we need to know which schools are best and which are worst so that parents can be smart shoppers.

If you buy the assumptions of the “reformers,” they win.

I think that every community should work to make its schools right for the children of that community.

But Clayton supports public education and has some interesting things to say about it.

I hope he wins his race. Running as a Democrat is red-state Idaho is an uphill battle. I wish him well.

Idaho is at the very bottom in education spending, and the State Superintendent Tom Luna likes to say that spending has nothing to do with achievement. Look at Utah, it spends even less.

Follow this line of argument to its logical conclusion: the best possible education is the one that costs the very least, with underpaid teachers, poorly maintained facilities (or none at all), and meager spending on supplies.