Federal fine for testing appealed

BOISE – The state Education Department is appealing a $104,000 federal fine, contending that the review that prompted the penalty was handled incorrectly and that the Board of Education, not the department, should be liable.

The U.S. Department of Education informed the state board in December that it would penalize the department because Idaho hasn’t conformed to all of the federal standardized testing requirements. The fine will come out of the $416,000 budget that the department uses to run its office in Boise.

In a long and detailed letter that related many steps in the complex development of Idaho’s school testing system, Marilyn Howard, state superintendent of public instruction, argued that her office, of which she is the elected leader, had tried to get the board to come into compliance.

Luci Willets, a spokeswoman for the State Board, told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News that she believed it unlikely the appeal would succeed.