School-Improvement Program Faltering Projects Endangered By Fox’s Efforts At Reform

Idaho’s biggest effort to improve public schools has established 20 small pilot projects all across the state.

But the 3-year-old program is in danger of dying, leaving individual school districts alone in researching and launching better ways to teach students. That could be a defeat for business leaders who invested time and money four years ago to start the reform plan.

“The reality is that we have trouble implementing change broadly in the system,” says Mark Falconer of Hewlett-Packard. “You end up with pockets of excellence all over the state - schools that are doing great things individually. But they are just that, they are pockets.”

One of those pockets is Naples Elementary School in Naples. With $320,000 from the state, the school built a computer lab and put more computers in classrooms.

Some people - including state school Superintendent Anne Fox - say local decision-making is the right approach.

Historically in Idaho, local officials - not the state - control schools. So it’s no surprise that the state committee was viewed with suspicion by some.

It did not help their cause when the committee proposed improvements - such as advanced technology - that would require more money to carry out.

And now Fox is starting her own effort to study the needs of schools, intended mainly to emphasize basic skills like reading, writing and mathematics.

In doing so, she has wiped out part of the plan that a consortium of educators, business leaders and others put together four years ago.

That plan had called for a set of expectations to be developed for what Idaho students need to know and be able to do.

Fox disagreed with the expectations - saying that many were vague and not based on concrete academics - so she put a moratorium on them and said she wanted a new set drawn up that emphasizes strong basic skills.

Starting this week, the Education Department will hold public hearings across the state for a new improvement plan and a new set of statewide expectations.

State Sen. John Hansen, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, says he thinks confusion between the state reform plan - called Schools for 2000 and Beyond - and a nationwide reform plan called Goals 2000 has contributed to its political problems.