Learning Standards Embraced, In Principle Budget Panel Cautious Over Total Cost, Which School Officials Can’T Provide

Tough new standards for what Idaho kids should know when they graduate from high school won near-final legislative approval Monday, but funding to enforce the standards may not follow.

While the House Education Committee was voting 12-3 in favor of the standards - which take effect unless lawmakers reject them - the Legislature’s budget committee was worrying the plan could create a financial “dark hole.”

“I am concerned over the cost of it,” said Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden, who serves on the budget committee. “It looks like a big dark hole to me.”

State education officials are seeking $1.15 million in the coming year to develop a test that will show whether students meet the so-called “exiting” standards. But under repeated questioning from legislative budget writers, top education officials couldn’t say how much more money would be needed.

“How can we blindly enter into the track of exiting standards without having some sort of estimate?” asked Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, vice chairman of the budget committee.

“I think the question we have to ask is, what is the cost of ill-prepared students?” responded Harold Davis, chairman of the state Board of Education.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has recommended only $500,000 in the coming year for the tests. State Superintendent of Schools Marilyn Howard told the committee that wouldn’t be enough.

“I believe this is actually a conservative number,” she said. “Examination of other states says that I think we are being as fiscally stringent as we can be in that area.”

Howard compared the standards push to Idaho’s reading initiative, which lawmakers enacted last year. That program tests youngsters through third grade to see if they are reading at grade level, and funds extra instruction for those who fall short.

But the standards push hasn’t yet identified costs beyond developing tests. The idea is to phase in the standards, and match school curriculum to them so students will succeed.

“If we organize curriculum correctly, check student progress, and offer extra help when needed, the 11th-grade testing will simply be a verification that the student has mastered these basic standards,” Howard said.

But when asked how much school districts might have to spend to put the standards into effect, Howard said that was “one of the big unknowns.”

Sen. Atwell Parry, R-Melba, budget committee co-chairman, said he’s wary of any open-ended promises of state spending.

“I’ve been here in the past when Health and Welfare or someone will come in and say, `We’ve got a little plan, it’s only going to cost you $2 million.’ The next year it’s $6 million.”

He added, “When we ask the question of what the future cost is going to be and they cannot give it to us, it’s going to be difficult.”

The proposed standards - which range from being able to balance a checkbook to analyzing literary passages to demonstrating Newton’s laws of motion - take effect unless both houses of the Legislature reject them. The Senate Education Committee will vote on the standards this morning, and a majority of that panel’s members already have said they’ll support them.

In the House committee, Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum, the committee’s vice chairman, spoke out in favor.

“I’d like to remind the committee that the same people attacking standards are the ones who are attacking the boards for dumbing down standards,” Meyer said.

The standards have been controversial, with some criticizing the inclusion of evolution in science standards, and others contending that some of the math standards are too tough.

Others have expressed fears that state-set standards will infringe on local control.

Howard said the state Board of Education wants mandatory statewide testing to see if students meet the standards in reading, writing and math. Local districts would have the option of also testing students on the standards for science and social studies.

Davis said the state board also hopes to develop optional standards for the arts and humanities.