Panel OKs changes in graduation rules

BOISE – The state Board of Education reached a long-awaited goal Wednesday when the House Education Committee voted to accept its plan to increase math and science requirements in high school.

Now legislative budget writers will decide whether the state should pay for the rule change, which is expected to cost $1.4 million in its first year.

“To pass the rules was the first step,” said Education Board spokeswoman Luci Willits after the committee voted 11-7 in favor of the rule. “We’ve got a lot of work to do – but at least we can get going on it.”

The board introduced its curriculum plan last year to a mixed response. In January, the House Education Committee cast a tie vote on it, effectively taking no action, and then the Senate Education Committee rejected it, sending it back to the House panel for approval. Since then, the board has been working hard to promote it.

Education Committee members said Wednesday they received a flood of e-mails from constituents and interest groups who oppose the plan. Some opponents were worried the plan would cut into student time for electives such as music, art and religious seminary; others said it would take control away from school districts. Some said they were concerned the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee would not approve money for the plan; others also feared students would drop out of high school if the requirements were too stiff.

Before the committee cast its second vote of the session on the matter Wednesday, Education Board President Rod Lewis said the board wouldn’t try to implement the rule unless money was approved.

Committee Chairman Jack Barraclough, who has supported the plan since it first appeared in his committee, asked his colleagues to give it a chance. He told them in a recent year, of the 60 percent of Idaho high school students who took the ACT college entrance test, only 21 percent were ready for college.

“I think they need a challenge,” said Barraclough, R-Idaho Falls.

Barraclough said the stream of e-mails against the proposal “set a record” Tuesday, but he counseled the panel to vote for the measure anyway. He noted there is a teacher running against him in the Republican primary as well as in the general election next fall, and his vote for the plan could hurt his political chances. “I’m probably risking more than most of you,” he said. But “we’re here to make tough votes.”

After the first vote in January, several committee members studied the plan and surveyed district superintendents to see what they thought of it. Rep. Jana Kemp, R-Boise, took part in that study; Wednesday she changed her vote from a no to a yes. She didn’t give her reasons.

Rep. Larry Bradford, R-Franklin, voted against the proposal for the second time Wednesday, saying the Education Board should create a plan more people accept.

“There are some concerns there, and we can make those concerns go away if we take the time,” he said.

The rule was created in response to statistics showing relatively few Idaho high school graduates go on to higher education – and those who do need remedial classes. The Education Board now requires only two years of math and two years of science, and four years of English for graduation; the rule increases that requirement to four years of math and three years of science and makes some other changes.

The cost of the plan is expected to increase to $17 million annually by 2013. The annual education budget is now just over $1 billion.

As a proposed rule change – not a law – the measure needed only to avoid rejection by one of the two education committees to go into effect. But members of the budget writing committee said they wouldn’t act until the House Education Committee voted on it again.

Now that they have, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee will likely take up the matter up next week, said Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, JFAC co-chairman.

Cameron said JFAC doesn’t need to accept or reject paying $1.4 million for the first year of implementing the rule; it might approve some of the spending for one part of the plan, such as teacher training – or might add language to the appropriation bill directing how the money should be spent.