The Idaho State Department of Education is part of a 31-state consortium that was awarded $160 million in federal stimulus dollars to create new tests and assessments for public school students.
The Race to the Top Assessment grant will help Idaho and the other states develop new online exams for students in grades three through eight and 11.
“Our goal is to ensure every student graduates from high school prepared to go on to postsecondary education or the workforce without the need for remediation,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said in a news release. “To accomplish this, we must have high-quality assessment tools in place to measure student progress throughout the school year and provide immediate feedback to parents, teachers, and students.”
All of Idaho’s neighboring states except Wyoming are part of the 31-state group working on the education project, called the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Idaho Deputy Superintendent of Assessment Dr. Carissa Miller is one of seven people on the consortium’s executive committee that will oversee the grant that will last for four years.
“Idaho has been at the forefront in delivering assessments online,” Miller said. “This partnership is an opportunity to build an online system that includes assessments that transcend state boundaries and give us the chance to see how Idaho students compare to their peers around the world.”
Idaho lost out on another area of Race to the Top, which is the U.S. Department of Education’s grant program funded by the 2009 federal stimulus package. Idaho applied for the first round of a $4.35 billion program aimed at helping states with a series of education reforms. The state scored low during the first round, and didn’t apply for the second round of funding.
