Archive for July 2004
On this spring’s Idaho Standards Achievement Test, the charter academy’s 23 sophomores all scored at or above the “proficient” level in math – that’s 100 percent. In fact, those same 10th graders also scored 100 percent proficient in the test’s other two categories, reading and language.
Not so for the Idaho Virtual Academy, a statewide online charter school that includes many North Idaho kids. Among that school’s 15 10th graders, just 33.3 percent scored proficient in math, 53.3 percent in language and 73.3 percent in reading.
Among all schools in the state, the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy’s 10th grade proficiency scores were by far the highest. The only other schools to come close were the Meridian Medical Arts Charter High School, whose 49 sophomores were 91.8 percent proficient in math, 100 percent in language and 98 percent in reading; and the Meridian Charter High School in Technology, whose 57 sophomores scored 98.3 percent proficient in math, 94.6 percent in language and 98.2 percent in reading.
It’s a big file to download, but you can see scores for all schools at this link. ISAT scores by school district, gender, ethnicity and several other categories also have been posted on the web.
When Sami Al-Hussayen arrived in Saudi Arabia, “There was a big crowd at the airport - friends, family, kids running everywhere, flowers, TV cameras, people yelling in joy - apparently total bedlam,” said David Nevin, Al-Hussayen’s Boise attorney, who received a happy call from his client late last night.
Abdullah Al-Muhaitheef, a friend of Sami’s and fellow University of Idaho alum, reported from Riyadh via email: “Today is a day that we should write it by water of gold.”
Sami was recognized by well-wishers in the Cairo airport en route to Riyadh, and one agreed to call Sami’s father’s cell phone, to let him know when his son would arrive. The former University of Idaho student wasn’t allowed to make phone calls himself while he remained in the custody of two immigration officials who accompanied him from Boise to Chicago to Rome to Cairo to Riyadh.
Al-Muhaitheef reported, “Thanks God for having our hero back, he arrived on time, his children, family and friends were in the airport waiting for him.”
These photos from the Riyadh airport show Sami reunited with his three young sons; kissing his father’s head in greeting; and taking congratulatory phone calls.
It was with great ceremony that the body of three-term Idaho Gov. Robert E. Smylie was brought to lie in state in the Capitol this evening. First, a huge cannon in the park across from the Statehouse fired a deafening 19-gun salute, the prescribed number for a governor. Then, the closed, flag-draped casket was escorted inside the capitol, where it stood amid flowers in the central rotunda, with military men and women in full dress uniform ringing it, standing at attention.Among the crowd that gathered to file through the rotunda and pay respects, conversation drifted from politics to Idaho history to everyday life. Displays of photos and memorabilia included the manual typewriter on which Gov. Smylie famously typed his speeches.
Smylie, governor of Idaho from 1955 to 1967, established Idaho’s state park system, department of commerce, historical museum, an improved state highway system and a retirement system for state employees. He oversaw the end of the political patronage system and the start of a civil service system for the state’s workforce, and the enactment of a sales tax to provide funding for education – a move so controversial that after its enactment, the three-term GOP governor lost the next gubernatorial primary to Don Samuelson.
Smylie also served two terms as Idaho Attorney General. His survivors include his son Steve, a Republican state representative from Boise.
North Idaho Rep. Wayne Meyer says a series of court decisions, including Friday’s appeals court decision invalidating Idaho’s parental-consent abortion law, prove he was right all along. Meyer opposed the consent law when it passed in 2000, but he said the vote that brought him the most criticism in his recent primary election defeat was against a bill to ban “partial-birth abortion.” Meyer didn’t debate the bill, but voted against it, because “several Attorney General’s opinions said it was unconstitutional,” he said. Immediately after it passed, the law was voided by a federal court.
So why did U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman travel all the way to the Idaho state capitol in Boise today to announce the Bush Administration’s new version of the roadless rule?“This is a state that is the most affected state by the roadless rule in the lower 48, so we thought it was appropriate to come to Idaho to make the announcement today,” Veneman said. “And we also have enjoyed a very close working relationship with both Gov. Kempthorne and Sen. Craig as we have addressed these issues.”
At the statehouse announcement, Veneman was flanked by Craig and Kempthorne, who both lauded the plan to give states a chance to petition for their own, state-specific roadless rules in the next 18 months. If states don’t petition, there’d be no roadless rule, and local forest plans would govern.
Idaho has more than 9 million acres of inventoried roadless land in its national forests, about 17 percent of the state’s land mass.
Betsy Z. Russell covers Idaho news from The Spokesman-Review's bureau in Boise.
Named best state-based political blog in Idaho for 2013 by The Fix
999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201
P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210
Main switchboard: (509) 459-5000 • (800) 338-8801
Newsroom: (509) 459-5400 • (800) 789-0029
Customer service: (800) 338-8801
© Copyright 2013, The Spokesman-Review
Terms of use • Privacy policy • Copyright policy
Spokane7
50°
Get blog updates by email
