Policy Update: Idaho: Out With the Old

Vital Statistics
112	Public school districts
624	Public schools
250,000	K-12 enrollment
10.9%	Minority students
18%	Children in poverty
10.2%	Students with disabilities
$1.1 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

And change, in the view of many educators, is what the state needs after a year when outgoing Superintendent Anne C. Fox alienated herself from members of the state school board and the state teachers' union, mainly because of her strong support for phonics-based reading instruction and tuition tax credits.

Fox says that although great progress was made during her four-year tenure, several areas still need improvement.

In fact, responding to federal regulations, the state has identified 47 Title I schools that don't measure up on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

To help students advance to higher levels of achievement, the state has focused much of its efforts in the past year on better preparing its teachers.

More than 3,000 teachers have gone through in-service training since 1995 to help them teach reading using phonics, improve their basic skills in mathematics, enhance school curriculum guidelines, and work with limited-English-proficient students.

In addition, the education department is working with the deans of local colleges of education to improve teacher training.

At the start of her term, Howard says, her first priority will be to emphasize improving students' reading skills. She plans to take her predecessor's efforts to improve reading one step further by making sure that teachers have a broad range of methods that go beyond phonics, which focuses on teaching students to sound out letters and words.

"If [students] aren't learning the way we teach, then we need to teach them the way that they learn," Howard says.

She also plans to use a grassroots approach to work with teachers and administrators to support and enhance their local efforts.

Meanwhile, the Idaho Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, has been trying to promote national board certification to its teachers.

The state has 17 teachers who have been certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards since fall 1995, and an additional 35 teachers are expected to be certified this year.

The IEA worked last year on a comprehensive proposal, called the A+ Public Schools Act, that touched on the concerns of teachers, teacher-educators, and community leaders about the needs of Idaho public schools. It covered many issues, including school safety, technology, professional development, curriculum, parental involvement, teacher assessment, and mentoring. The proposal was originally set to go before the legislature during this spring's session, but the union has since decided to pursue its ideas individually at the district level, without pressing to enact the proposal into state law.

"In general, I think we are headed in the right direction," says James A. Shackelford, the executive director of the IEA. He adds that the teachers' association hopes it can count on Idaho's new governor to make education a state priority.

Dirk Kempthorne, a U.S. senator who made a successful bid to succeed fellow Republican Phil Batt as governor, has already proposed lowering the majority required--from 66 percent to 60 percent--for passing school bonds. Education groups see such a change as a boon to the public schools.

Overall, Idaho students are scoring at or above the national average on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

Fox, the outgoing superintendent, attributes that showing to a return to the basics of reading and math. The state in 1995 expanded its testing program to monitor students' progress in grades 3 through 11.

The state also administers the Idaho Direct Math Assessment in grades 4 and 8 and the Idaho Direct Writing Assessment in grades 4, 8, and 11.

One test that Idaho students have not taken part in regularly is the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests a sampling of students in core subjects. Fox says that officials in Idaho have not been particularly fond of the national assessment for a number of reasons.

"The length of time it takes to get [NAEP] scores back is too long," she says. "Our teachers want immediate feedback."

The Iowa Tests, however, enable students' progress to be tracked faster, she says, and allow any problem areas to be addressed immediately.

"I'm really proud of what our state has done, [since] we're one of the most underfunded states in the country," Fox says. The state ranked 47th in per-pupil spending in the 1996-97 school year.

The legislature approved and the governor signed last April a $796.36 million K-12 education budget for fiscal 1999--a 12.9 percent increase from the previous year.

Under the approved budget, Idaho continued for the fifth year to devote $10.4 million to educational technology. The legislature also appropriated $400,000 for the establishment of professional-technical schools by local districts.

In addition, public schools in Idaho have one of the 50 wealthiest philanthropies in the nation in their corner. The Boise-based J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation has given generously in the past and continues to do so. The foundation pledged last May to give a total of $110 million over the next three years to be used for technology, teacher standards, and reading. Part of that funding guarantees a computer for every teacher in the state.

If teachers are not technologically literate, the money can be used for computer training. But by 2001, districts must prove that 90 percent of their teachers are able to use computer technology, Fox says.

A legislative committee on reading prepared a proposal for the session of the legislature that starts this month. Aimed at ensuring that every child can read by the 3rd grade, the plan proposes exit standards geared to reading in grades K-3 and calls for ways to measure students' progress.

In 1996, a 10-member panel was formed to set the state's exit standards in grades 9-12 in five core subject areas: language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and health. Since the panel's inception, 1,500 rules have been pared down to 378. A final draft of the exit standards is expected to go before the state school board this month.

After four years of trying, Idaho last March became the 30th state to adopt charter school legislation allowing the creation of the publicly funded but largely independent schools. The law, which went into effect in July 1998, allows 12 charters to be granted each year for the first five years of the initiative. Only two charters can exist within each of six geographic regions set by the state.

Charters are granted through local school districts, and the recipients are exempt from state board rules that govern other public schools. If a group seeking a charter and the local district cannot agree, the applicants may appeal to the state board. Idaho's first charter school opened last September with 12 students. The school, which serves students in grades 6-12, targets youths who are at risk of dropping out of regular schools.