The $26 Million Question: Why Are Idaho Taxpayers Funding Teachers’ Side Hustles?

Under the hood of the unregulated online learning platform where teachers collect unreported income and taxpayers pay triple what private alternatives charge

The Idaho Digital Learning Alliance (IDLA) was created in 2002 to solve a real problem: rural students who needed access to courses their small schools couldn’t offer, like Japanese 3 or AP Physics. It was supposed to be Idaho’s answer to online learning, giving students across the state access to specialized courses through a state-run platform.

Twenty-three years later, IDLA has become something else entirely.

With an almost $26 million annual budget that has more than doubled since 2019 and virtually no oversight since its authorizing statute was last revised in 2008, IDLA has evolved into a side hustle for public school teachers who collect thousands of dollars in “unreported” income, often (allegedly) while they’re supposed to be teaching their regular classes.

If you’ve never heard of IDLA, you’re not alone. I didn’t know what it was until I got elected. That’s because it’s flown under the radar for two decades, operating as a “governmental entity” that’s not quite a state agency, not quite a school district, and not subject to the procurement rules, competitive bidding requirements, or accountability measures that apply to almost every other entity spending taxpayer money in Idaho.

Here’s what you need to know about where your tax dollars are going.

The “Off-the-Books” Payment System

Here’s how it works:

Public school teachers sign contracts with IDLA to teach online courses, getting paid between $87.50 and $170 per student enrolled. With a typical class of 30 students, that’s $2,625 to $5,100 per course, and when you add in bonus payments of $35 per student, teachers can pocket another $500 to $1,000 per course.

So, a teacher running multiple IDLA courses while holding down their full-time teaching job can easily make an extra $3,000 to $5,000 per course, which means that per semester, they could be pulling in an additional $10,000 to $20,000 in income.

And here’s the kicker: this money is completely off the books.

It doesn’t appear in the salary data reported to the legislature or in any public accounting of teacher compensation, which means the legislature thinks they know what teachers are being paid when they actually don’t.

The Problem Gets Worse

These teachers aren’t just moonlighting in the evenings; many are teaching IDLA courses during regular school hours while they’re being paid their full-time salary by their school district.

Think about that. You’re paying a teacher’s full salary to teach at your local school, and that teacher is also getting paid thousands more by IDLA, but during the school day, they’re managing IDLA students instead of focusing on the job you’re already paying them to do.

Why isn’t this prohibited? Why isn’t there a rule that says if you’re going to teach IDLA courses, you do it on your own time, not during hours covered by your employment contract?

What Are We Actually Paying For?

I’ve talked to IDLA parents and students, and the picture they paint is concerning.

This isn’t traditional teaching; there’s no 1:1 time between students and teachers, and students describe it as an email exchange course where you watch videos, complete assignments, and occasionally email questions. It’s correspondence education (maybe like taking a course on YouTube). Some have even had to hire tutors to help with IDLA because they said “the teacher doesn’t teach us anything.”

Is that worth $500+ per student per course?

Because that’s what IDLA costs when you combine the $445 in state funding with the $40 to $75 in fees that districts and students pay. Compare that to free market online providers, which bill around $150 per enrollment for the same format, the same correspondence-style instruction, at one-third the cost.

The PERSI Problem

Here’s another oddity. IDLA has roughly 80 employees (not counting the contract teachers), and all of them are enrolled in PERSI, Idaho’s public employee retirement system.

But IDLA employees aren’t state employees, and they’re not technically school employees either. IDLA is defined in statute as a “governmental entity,” but it’s not a school district, not a state agency, not an independent corporate body. They’re in a special category that lets them enjoy public employee benefits while avoiding the accountability and oversight that comes with being an actual state agency or school district.

IDLA teachers are paid more than many teachers around the state, but they’re not held to the same standards as school teachers because they don’t follow state salary schedules and don’t participate in the career ladder system.

Why Not Let the Market Work?

The state legislature funds IDLA at $445 per course enrollment while districts must pay private sector providers out of their own budgets, which means IDLA is “free” to them (paid by the state).

This creates a distorted market. Of course districts choose IDLA over private providers when they can pick the option that costs them nothing.

But taxpayers are footing a bill that’s more than three times what the private market charges, and we’re protecting IDLA from competition while paying premium prices for what students describe as correspondence courses.

If IDLA is providing value worth $500 per course, great! Let districts pay for it from their operational budgets and see if they still choose IDLA over cheaper alternatives (or let families use Advanced Opportunities funds to pay for it if they think it’s worth it).

But stop forcing all Idaho taxpayers to subsidize a program that costs triple the market rate and has minimal accountability.

The Transparency Gap

IDLA was created in 2002, and the underlying statute hasn’t been updated since 2008, which means for for nearly two decades, IDLA has ran without much supervision, doing whatever it wants.

There are no procurement rules, no requirment to follow state purchasing laws, no competitive bidding on contracts. The board is mostly made up of school district representatives who are also IDLA’s customers, with only two independent members.

When an entity gets nearly $26 million in taxpayer funding, we should expect transparency.

We should know how money is being spent, whether teachers are double-dipping on public salaries, and if we’re getting value for our money.

Right now, we don’t.

What Should Change?

The fix isn’t complicated:

Maybe we should just stop letting full-time public school teachers teach IDLA courses during school hours... if they want the extra income, fine, but do it on your own time, and require that IDLA payments be reported as part of salary data so the legislature knows what teachers are actually making.

Maybe we change the funding model... let the entity that benefits pay the cost, whether that’s a district paying from their operational budget, a family using Advanced Opportunities funds, or anyone else who wants to use IDLA. If IDLA is worth the price, people will pay, and if not, IDLA will need to deliver better value or adjust their pricing.

Maybe we stop double-paying… if a student is taking an IDLA course during the school day, the district shouldn’t get ADA funding for that student while IDLA also gets paid. Pick one.

Maybe just kill it overall… stop funding IDLA directly and let schools and families choose what works best for them.

IDLA can continue to exist, but it should compete on merit, not on preferential funding that shields it from market pressures while inflating costs for taxpayers.

Idaho taxpayers are spending $25.8 million per year on a program that pays teachers off-the-books income during school hours, costs three times what private alternatives charge, provides what students describe as correspondence courses with minimal direct instruction, operates with minimal oversight or accountability, and enrolls employees in public retirement systems despite not being a state agency.

That makes no sense and it’s not fair to taxpayers.

It’s time for the legislature to shine some light on IDLA’s budget and practices, because the more people know about how this system actually works, the harder it becomes to justify maintaining it in its current form.