State Department of Education officials on Tuesday asked members of new committee rewriting Idaho’s science standards to follow the Legislature’s guidance.
“The superintendent and the State Board have been listening to the feedback and concerns of parents, the public and the Legislature regarding the standards,” Deputy Superintendent for Communications and Policy Marilyn Whitney said.
“It is our shared goal to improve the standards and provide our school districts and educators with a set of science standards that have the support of parents, educators and the Legislature.”
Whitney referred members of the new Idaho Content Standards Science Review Committee to a three-page letter that members of the House and Senate education committees signed earlier this year.
Specifically, members of the standards review committee should focus on:
- Reducing the number and complexity of standards.
- Ensuring the standards are age-appropriate.
- Prioritizing the standards.
Committee members asked how they were supposed to determine whether standards are grade appropriate.
The committee includes teachers, higher education professionals, parents and legislators.
SDE officials said this is a process they are all working through, but they want the standards to fit together and build upon each other logically.
Debates over academic standards have played out in four of the past five legislative sessions. The Legislature approved the existing science standards in 2018 after a years-long debate.
Earlier this year, the House Education Committee voted to repeal all academic standards in math, science and English before it was overruled by the Senate Education Committee.
The new science standards committee was one of three the SDE launched this week. The other two are focusing on math and English standards.
Tuesday’s science standards meeting went much smoother than Monday’s inaugural hearing on math standards. Much of the math hearing transpired in secret because SDE officials did not provide the password that was necessary for the public to listen to the meeting. SDE officials provided the passwords in a news release sent out 46 minutes after the meeting began.
This week’s meetings touched off what is expected to be a lengthy and intricate process. The standards committees are expected to come up with proposed new standards in time for the October 2021 State Board of Education meeting. The standards are also expected go before the Legislature in 2022.
Even though the fish line is a long way off, the first draft of new standards could come together in November.
The three review committees are scheduled to meet again in early August.
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U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered state officials to work with Reclaim Idaho, and allow the group to resume campaigning for its $170 million K-12 funding ballot initiative next week.
The 5-4 ruling focuses attention on so-called Blaine Amendments, which prohibit the use of public money to support religious schools. Idaho is one of about three dozen states with such an amendment.
Saying the state has shown it has no intention of complying with an earlier court ruling, Reclaim Idaho’s attorneys want a federal judge to place their $170 million initiative before voters.
In other news, Gov. Brad Little’s school reopening committee is nearing — and extending — its deadline to act.
It’s unclear how much state superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s lawyer has received. Former attorney general and lieutenant governor David Leroy has a contract worth up to $200,000.
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