Idaho Teachers Irate Over Bad Report Card

This time it is not students who are explaining why their report card is peppered with bad grades.

Idaho educators say the bad marks they recently received from a national publication are unfair because they are based on “artificial standards.”

Education Week released its second annual “Quality Counts” report last week, ranking states’ education efforts in terms of spending, teacher education and state policies.

Quality Counts is paid for by the Pew Charitable Trust, one of the nation’s largest philanthropies.

The magazine’s project includes grades for each state in standards and assessments, teaching, school climate and resources.

Idaho received a C- for standards and assessments, a D+ for teaching and no grade for school climate. As for resources, Idaho got a B- for adequacy, a C- for equity and a C for allocation.

That is a slight improvement over last year’s rankings.

Idaho schools Superintendent Anne Fox and education department employees find the report discouraging.

“It discredits us,” Fox said. “We have great teachers in this state.”

Fox said she is unsure where the authors got their information, but some dates to 1994 and some is inaccurate.

In teacher preparation, Idaho got a D+. The state was marked down for not supporting the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium.

Idaho also got bad marks for not providing incentives to teachers seeking national board certification.