State board drops school reform

BOISE – The Idaho Board of Education on Thursday dropped its efforts to reform the high school curriculum – for now.

The board will spend the coming months working on a new plan – and trying to convince Idaho teachers, parents and school administrators that such reform is good for the state, Executive Director Dwight Johnson told the House Education Committee.

“We will be back next year with another rule, modified to the degree we can,” Johnson said, adding the board would “come back with a rule that can earn the support and full funding from the Legislature.”

This year’s proposal would have expanded math and science requirements and made other changes aimed at getting more Idaho high school graduates into college. The Senate Education Committee rejected it but, as a rule change rather than a law, the proposal could still have gone into effect since it avoided rejection by the House.

But the Education Board had already promised not to implement the rule change without a guarantee that budget writers would pay for it. The board didn’t get that guarantee, so Thursday, Johnson said the effort was being dropped for this year.

Rep. Jack Barraclough, chairman of the House Education Committee and a supporter of the change from the start, said he was disappointed in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee for failing to promise money. The Education Board had requested $1.4 million for the first year and estimated the total cost would rise to $17 million annually by 2013.

The failure of the board’s proposal “sends exactly the wrong message,” Barraclough said. “We need education reform.”

Barraclough said the budget writing committee overstepped its authority when it decided not to pay for the suggested changes.

“It’s the role of this committee to set policy on education,” said Barraclough, R-Idaho Falls. “It’s JFAC’s role to fund things that we pass.”

But Sen. Dean Cameron, JFAC co-chairman, said Thursday the panel had offered to put up almost $1 million to implement changes in districts that volunteered to participate – but the board rejected that offer.

“They wanted a uniform rule throughout the state,” said Cameron, R-Rupert. “I certainly understand their perspective, but we don’t have uniformity today. We’ve got districts offering three years of math, districts offering two years of math, districts offering four years of math.”

Many business and education leaders testified in favor of the rule change at the beginning of the session, but lawmakers received a deluge of e-mails asking them to vote against it. Parents, teachers and administrators told lawmakers they were worried that it would cut into electives such as art, music and religious instruction, and that it would take local control from districts.

The House Education Committee on Thursday also decided not to take any action on a resolution aimed at killing the proposal that was earlier passed in the Senate.