From the Associated Press

By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ The Idaho State Board of Education held a four-hour closed meeting last week to discuss eliminating a statewide ninth-grade test due to a cash crisis, despite a state law requiring most of its sessions be open to the public.

The Spokesman-Review newspaper, which first reported details of the executive session, on Wednesday filed a complaint with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.

Following the executive session Dec. 6 in Pocatello, the board this week opted to cut the Idaho Standard Achievement Tests for ninth-graders because the agency didn’t have $826,000 to pay Data Recognition Corp., a Minnesota-based testing service that administers the tests.

High school students must pass the 10th-grade version of the test to graduate. Ninth-grade tests were another chance to practice.

The closed meeting was questioned by some lawmakers, including Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee. He told the Spokesman-Review that dumping the ninth-grade test was “not one of those items that’s allowed in executive session.”

Carla Savalli, a senior editor for the Spokane, Wash., newspaper, said it filed the complaint as part of its government-watchdog role.

“We vigorously defend the public’s right to know,” Savalli said. “We take that role very seriously.”

Mark Browning, a Board of Education spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Deputy Attorney General Jeff Schrader said the executive session was appropriate.

“I was assured that it was within the bounds of the open meetings law,” Browning said.

When asked by the AP, Schrader declined to provide his rationale justifying an executive session.

Bob Cooper, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office in Boise, confirmed it had received the complaint. He declined further comment.

Knowingly violating the law carries a maximum $150 fine per person for a first offense.

The Idaho Open Meeting Law requires 24-hour meeting and agenda notice be given before holding an executive session. The notice must give the reason for the closed meeting.

The law allows closing the meetings to cover such things as hiring new employees, disciplinary action, labor negotiations, plotting legal strategy, and preliminary trade negotiations where the government is competing with other states or nations, among other things.

“The state Board of Education is violating the Idaho Open Meeting Law by not specifying under which exemption it is holding a closed session; by not keeping minutes of executive sessions that include ‘a specific reference to the statutory subsection authorizing the executive session and sufficient detail to convey the general subject matter;’ and by discussing public policy issues including student testing and the board’s budget in closed session,” according to the Spokesman-Review’s complaint.

The complaint also alleges that board members communicated illegally prior to this week’s decision to eliminate testing.

ISAT testing-related budget problems began earlier this year, when former Board of Education Executive Director Dwight Johnson ordered second-grade and ninth-grade ISAT tests, but failed to see that Data Recognition Corp.’s contract didn’t include those tests in the price of federally required testing for third- through eighth-graders and 10th-graders.

When bills started arriving from the company, the agency realized the mistake, Browning said.

“We said, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve got bills coming in that are more than we can pay for,'” he said.

In September, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter ordered the board to eliminate voluntary second-grade and ninth-grade testing. The board cut the second-grade tests, but its staff tried to find money for the ninth-grade tests.

That failed, Browning said, forcing current Board of Education Executive Director Mike Rush to cut the program on Monday following discussions with board members, including board President Milford Terrell.

“Mike Rush made his decision in consultation with Milford,” Browning said. “He said, ‘We cannot find funding for this, there’s no way to pay for it, we’ve got to pull the plug.'”

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

From the Associated Press

Board president cites cost savings

From the Spokesman-Review

Betsy Z. Russell
Staff writer
December 12, 2007

BOISE – Idaho ninth-graders won’t take the state’s standardized tests this spring because of a budget shortfall, the state Board of Education announced this week.

However, the board hasn’t taken a vote to make that change, and discussed the matter during a closed session at its Pocatello board meeting last Thursday in apparent violation of the Idaho Open Meeting Law, which allows closed meetings only for specific purposes.

The testing change is controversial because students must pass the 10th-grade version of the Idaho Standards Achievement Test to graduate from high school.

“It seems kind of ludicrous when as sophomores the test starts to count in earnest, they give them a year off as freshmen,” said state Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Goedde added that eliminating the ninth-grade test is “not one of those items that’s allowed in executive session. … It would have been much better if the discussion had been held in open session and the public would have had a chance to hear.”

Idaho will save $826,320 this year by not testing ninth-graders this spring, the board estimated. Annual testing of third- through eighth-graders is required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, though Idaho chooses to test those students twice a year, in spring and fall. The state board voted in September to eliminate second-grade testing, and some educators are pushing for the elimination of the fall tests for all grades.

Board spokesman Mark Browning said the board’s contract with an outside vendor for the testing included third- through eighth-graders as a central part of the contract, with ninth-grade testing as an add-on.

Browning said the board discussed various options in the executive session, but he said no final decision was made there.

The public announcement, however, was clear. “The Idaho State Board of Education announced today that they have eliminated the 9th-grade test as part of the Idaho Standards Achievement Test in both the spring and fall testing windows, effective immediately,” it said, adding later, “The change is due to unforeseen contractual costs associated with the test.”

Even discussion of the matter in executive session – whether or not a final decision was reached – would have violated the Open Meeting Law, since it doesn’t fall under any of the law’s exemptions from open meeting requirements. Those exemptions include hiring, firing or disciplining a public employee, conducting labor negotiations and plotting legal strategy in litigation involving the agency.

“All I know is that I have been given every assurance that nothing was discussed in there that was outside the bounds of the law,” Browning said.

The board’s attorney, Deputy Attorney General Jeff Schrader, declined to comment, referring questions to Browning.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Browning said the press release he sent out Monday might have mischaracterized the status of the decision, and that the board still might discuss the ninth-grade testing issue at its next regular meeting in January or in a special meeting before then. Current state board rules require the ninth-grade testing.

“I should have written that to say that the executive director of the office of the state board has announced that he has ordered work on the ninth-grade test to be stopped,” Browning said.

The board took no action on the ninth-grade testing issue following Thursday’s four-hour closed session, nor did the item appear on the board’s agenda for the meeting.

Four board members didn’t return a reporter’s calls Tuesday. A fifth board member, Sue Thilo of Coeur d’Alene, declined to comment on the executive session.

Bob Cooper, spokesman for the Idaho Attorney General’s office, said he couldn’t comment on whether the board had violated the law. “We have a law enforcement responsibility with regard to state agencies, so if there is a complaint, it would be our responsibility to investigate and thus inappropriate for us to comment prior to receiving any complaint,” he said.

Goedde said there was “a mess-up in the budget this year” that led to the shortfall for testing, and that he doesn’t fault the state board for canceling this spring’s ninth-grade test. “What I’m hoping is they’ll find a way to put it in the budget for next year and continue it in the budget thereafter,” he said.

Thilo said she, too, hopes ninth-grade testing can be restored in future years. State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna, who serves on the state board, issued a statement, saying, “This is unfortunate. We understand the importance of ninth-grade testing, but like any state agency, the state Board of Education must be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars and spend within its budget. We are hopeful we will start testing ninth grade again in future years.”

The ISAT tests students on reading, language usage and math. Fifth-, seventh- and 10th-graders also are tested on science. The computerized test, which takes students about 90 minutes to complete, is used to determine whether each Idaho school is making “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.

Luna’s spokeswoman, Melissa McGrath, said he missed part of the board meeting and wasn’t there when the ninth-grade testing was discussed.

From the Spokesman-Review

By Kevin Richert

From the Idaho Statesman

Today we catch up, belatedly, on another unusual “no” vote from 1st District Rep. Bill Sali. Sali was among just 21 House members to vote no on HR 2102, a federal “shield law” governing journalists’ ability to protect the anonymity of unnamed sources.

The bill passed the House on Oct. 16; to his credit, 2nd District Rep. Mike Simpson voted yes. I can hear the Sali defenders now. “Oh, now Sali’s done it: he has voted against a media bill, ticking off all those reporters and pundits who have never liked him in the first place.”

First off, I’ll defend a Sali no vote when he has a good explanation for it (as I did recently, when I said I could understand his no vote on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion bill and the cigarette tax increase that went with it). And second, an effective shield law isn’t just a media bill. In protecting journalists’ ability to report on sensitive stories, shield law honors the public’s right to know.

Here’s how spokesman Wayne Hoffman explains Sali’s vote: “The congressman was concerned that the bill would encourage the leaking of classified material. At the same time, there’s a concern that the bill would set so high a bar as to discourage investigations and prosecutions of such leaks.”

I can appreciate Sali’s concerns, but I don’t just disagree with his interpretation of HR 2012. This is no get-out-of-jail (or stay-out-of-jail) card for journalists. Reporters could be forced to reveal their sources for reasons of national security; if disclosure is “necessary to prevent imminent death or significant bodily harm;” and if disclosure is in the public interest, “taking into account both the public interest in compelling disclosure and the public interest in gathering news and maintaining the free flow of information.”

This is a balancing act, as HR 2102 seems to recognize. This balance is important even during – and especially during – a nebulous and ongoing war on terror.

Kevin Richert: 377-6437

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Spokesman-Review

Police investigating possibility of crime

Erica F. Curless
Staff writer, The Spokesman-Review
October 19, 2007

Coeur d’Alene police are investigating whether a Kootenai County senior planner broke the law by ordering the destruction of a recording of a public meeting.

After the Sept. 24 Planning Commission workshop adjourned, some members allegedly criticized the Kootenai County Commission and county Planning Director Scott Clark. The planners realized that an audio recorder was still on.

Senior Planner Cheri Howell allegedly ordered an administrative secretary to delete the audio file, which contained the alleged comments and the recording of the entire workshop on the rewrite of the county growth plan.

Scott Poorman, Howell’s attorney, said Thursday she didn’t delete or order the destruction of a public record. It comes down to whether the audio recording is considered a public record under the definition of state law, Poorman said.

County Commissioner Todd Tondee said he doesn’t believe anything illegal occurred because there were other, written minutes of the meeting.

“The file wasn’t the public record,” Tondee said, adding he doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of what occurred or what happened to the file. “We have the minutes of the meeting.”

Howell has been on voluntary medical leave since about Oct. 4 for what Poorman described as “stress and anxiety” stemming from the county calling the Coeur d’Alene police about a “possible criminal act” before ever talking with Howell about the incident.

“If they asked what had happened before they ran to the police, none of this would have happened,” he said. “I think they reported a nonevent.”

Kootenai County Attorney John Cafferty wouldn’t discuss the case but did confirm he contacted the Coeur d’Alene Police Department to report the alleged destruction of a county record.

Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Wes Somerton declined to release the police report Thursday, writing in an e-mail that the city won’t make the report public until after the investigation is complete. The city also declined to give Poorman or Howell a copy of the report.

Poorman said Howell was contacted by a Coeur d’Alene police officer but that she refused to answer questions because she hasn’t seen the county’s complaint and doesn’t know what the department is specifically investigating.

Poorman said he didn’t know whether any Planning Commission members are under investigation.

Commission member Mark Triplett said Thursday that he’s been out of town this week and is uncomfortable talking about the investigation or what occurred after the September meeting. He has not been contacted by the police.

Triplett said the Planning Commission members are all volunteers and have outside jobs and that the stress and demands of the comprehensive plan rewrite is taking its toll on them. The commission is meeting about three times a week to make the deadline to finish the document that will outline how the county should grow in the next decade.

“I don’t think it was a big deal,” Triplett said. “It’s an emotional process. People get emotional about the comprehensive plan.”

Triplett said it’s a shame if the incident delays or puts negative light on the comprehensive plan rewrite.

Tondee shared those concerns and said he thinks it’s healthy if the voluntary board feels confident enough to “bad-mouth” the county commissioners.

“It means we will get some honest stuff,” Tondee said, adding he doesn’t know what the planning commissioners allegedly said about the county commission or the planning director. “If everyone was intimidated and scared, what kind of a plan are we going to have?”

Sommerton said he expects the Idaho attorney general’s office will handle the case, deciding whether to make any criminal charges, because it’s a conflict to have the county prosecutor’s office review a case stemming from another county office.

Prosecutor Bill Douglas said he had no knowledge of the investigation.

From the Spokesman-Review

From the Post Register

By Corey Taule

IDAHO FALLS – The argument about what the public should know about a civil case between Melaleuca Inc. and its former vice president of marketing remains unresolved.

Said Ron Swafford, the attorney for former Melaleuca employee Jeff Wasden: “(Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot) doesn’t want anything to be available to the public.”

VanderSloot declined comment. He cited a court document in which District Court Judge Brent Moss made clear that neither party was to seek publicity.

“The parties are directed to refrain from contacting the press or media in an effort to place stories in the media, or to otherwise gain public relations points, about this litigation, as same may adversely affect the ability of the court to obtain a fair and impartial jury,” Moss wrote.

Here’s what we know: Melaleuca and VanderSloot sued Wasden for allegedly violating a separation agreement and recruiting key employees. Wasden denies this, and in a counter claim accused Melaleuca of breach of contract and VanderSloot of defamation.

Saying it worried about proprietary information being made public, Melaleuca asked the court to seal the case file and close the courtroom to the public.

Attorney Steve Wright, representing the Post Register, filed a brief with the court saying that the possibility of trade secrets being revealed is not a reason to seal the entire case and lock the public out of the courtroom.

The brief said the newspaper has no interest in publishing Melaleuca’s trade secrets and that the information could simply be redacted from the court file.

Moss kicked the issue back to the lawyers, telling them to come up with a compromise about what should be public record. That was in April. Swafford and Melaleuca attorney Curt Thomsen tried and failed.

At about that time, Moss was severely injured after falling off a horse, which delayed proceedings. A hearing scheduled Oct. 1 to address the issue has been delayed because Moss will be out of town. It has been rescheduled for Oct.16.

“I wanted to get that pinned down and have the judge tell us what is public record and what is not,” Swafford said.

It appears that decision will be left to Moss, the fourth judge to be assigned the case.

After each side disqualified one judge, the court assigned the case to new District Court Judge Darren Simpson.

But Wasden argued that he couldn’t get a fair trial because VanderSloot publicly and financially backed Simpson’s successful election effort against incumbent James Herndon. Simpson then stepped down.

From the Post Register

From the Idaho Statesman

By Cynthia Sewell

The state has put an end to the ongoing lawsuit over a closed-door meeting more than two years ago between the Ada County commissioners and a Boise city councilman.

Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has decided not to pursue fining commissioners for an open meeting act violation that occurred during a June 2005 executive session. At the meeting, commissioners met with a Boise city council member to talk about intergovernmental relations and a possible lawsuit over a pending housing development.

The commissioners denied any wrongdoing.

In March 2006 the district court ruled the county committed two violations of the open meeting law: holding an executive session without a lawyer present and not keeping a written record of the vote to go into the session.

Each commissioner received a $150 fine. The commissioners appealed that decision to Idaho’s highest court, maintaining the state’s open meeting law is confusing and ambiguous.

In May of this year the Idaho Supreme Court sided with the commissioners in their argument that they were allowed under existing law to meet behind closed doors without a lawyer present. The court sided against the county on the other violation.

The court sent back to a lower court the question of whether commissioners knowingly violated the open meeting law, thereby making them subject to a fine. According to an Aug. 23 court order dismissing the case, “The parties agree that in the best interests of justice and to avoid unnecessary expenditures of further public funds, no fine will be sought.”

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Lewiston Tribune

Aug- 20,2007 – Jim Fisher

Holding invitation-only talks on health care policy without inviting someone representing physicians, as Idaho Gov. Butch Otter is doing, is screwy. It’s like holding talks on education policy without inviting someone representing teachers.

And holding those talks behind closed doors, as Otter is also doing, is plain dumb. It’s like the sessions former first lady Hillary Clinton conducted while preparing her plan for overhauling the nation’s health insurance system.

Members of Otter’s party criticized President Clinton’s wife -justly – for refusing to open the discussions of her 1993 health care group to public view. The proposal resulting from the talks went nowhere, partly because Americans had no understanding of the reasoning behind it and were therefore vulnerable to the distortions in television advertising the health insurance industry broadcast against it.

Can Otter really expect anything of substance resulting from his health care summit Tuesday and Wednesday to fare any better?

To begin with, the governor has snubbed 75 percent of the state’s doctors who belong to the Idaho Medical Association. And apparently, it was no accident. When the association’s executive director, Bob Seehusen, learned of the event, he asked to be permitted to attend, but was rebuffed.

As a result, “there’s no one representing the providers there,” Seehusen says.

The insurance industry is represented, however, as is the hospital industry, employers and of course the Idaho Legislature.

Among those legislators invited to attend is state Sen. Diane Bilyeu. But the Pocatello Democrat says she doesn’t know why. Neither does Bilyeu know why the sessions should be conducted outside of public view.

As a former member of the State Board of Education, Bilyeu is accustomed to arguing in public – the board has a praiseworthy record of that – and she says, “You need the light of day on any issue.”

Otter spokesman Jon Hanian says the sessions of the health care summit are closed because the governor “wants to ensure that these issues aren’t politicized.” How’s that again? An elected governor is going to sit down with elected legislators and representatives of various interest groups to talk about issues of vital importance to those interests in hopes of making proposals to an elected Legislature, but the issues won’t be polticized?

Come on. Shut the people out of these talks if you like, but don’t play them for fools while you’re at it.

From the Lewiston Tribune

From the Associated Press

By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer

July 6, 2007

BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child.

Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell’s shower, with the water still running.

“Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again,” he wrote his uncle. “I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn’t been changed since they caught me.”

Payne’s suicide on March 4 came seven months after he was sent to the squalid privately run Texas prison by Idaho authorities trying to ease inmate overcrowding in their own state. His death exposed what had been Idaho’s standard practice for dealing with inmates sent to out-of-state prisons: Out of sight, out of mind.

It also raised questions about a company hired to operate prisons in 15 states, despite reports of abusive guards and terrible sanitation.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show Idaho did little monitoring of out-of-state inmates, despite repeated complaints from prisoners, their families and a prison inspector.

More than 140,000 U.S. prison beds are in private hands, and inmates’ rights groups allege many such penitentiaries tolerate deplorable conditions and skimp on services to increase profits.

“They cut corners because the bottom line is making money,” said Caylor Rolling, prison program director at Partnership for Safety and Justice in Portland, Ore., a group that promotes prison alternatives.

Payne, 43, was placed in solitary confinement because he escaped from the prison in December by scaling a fence and eluding capture for a week.

He was among Idaho inmates sent to the prison in Spur, Texas, run by a Florida-based company called the GEO Group. The business operates more than 50 prisons across the United States as well as in Australia and South Africa.

Soon after Payne’s suicide, the Idaho Department of Correction’s health care director inspected the prison and declared it the worst facility he had ever seen. Don Stockman called Payne’s cell unacceptable and the rest of the Dickens County Correctional Center “beyond repair.”

“The physical environment … would have only enhanced the inmate’s depression that could have been a major contributing factor in his suicide,” he wrote in a report on Payne’s death.

Stockman said the warden at Dickens ruled “based on verbal and physical intimidation” and that guards showed no concern for the living conditions.

After Idaho’s complaints, GEO reassigned warden Ron Alford, who told the AP he was later fired. He insisted GEO did not provide enough money to make necessary improvements.

“They denied me everything. To buy a pencil with GEO, it took three signatures. They’re cheap,” Alford said in an interview. He disputes Stockman’s findings on his treatment of Idaho inmates.

GEO spokesman Pablo Paez declined to comment on Alford’s performance and would say only that the company had been working to address Idaho officials’ concerns. But on Thursday, the state announced plans to move 125 inmates from Dickens to other facilities, citing the poor living conditions.

The private prison business has been booming as the federal government seeks space to house more criminals and illegal immigrants.

“Sometimes it may be a better situation for the inmates, and sometimes it’s not,” said prison consultant Douglas Lansing, a former warden at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, N.J. “Monitoring is a vital component. You can’t just move them out of town and forget them.”

That appears to be largely what happened with Idaho’s inmates.

The prisoners were sent to Dickens in August from another GEO-run Texas prison after complaints about abuse by guards.

But in the following seven months, Idaho sent an inspector to Texas only once. That inspection found major problems, including virtually no substance-abuse treatment, and a complete lack of Idaho-sanctioned anger-management classes and pre-release programs.

There’s no evidence the inspector’s recommendations were followed. And no one from Idaho visited the prison again until after Payne’s suicide.

Most of the time, the Idaho prison employee responsible for monitoring the GEO contract used only the telephone and e-mail to handle grievances, which also included complaints about inadequate church services, poor food and limited recreation time.

Each time, Alford insisted everything was under control, according to correspondence reviewed by the AP.

The new director of the Idaho prison system concedes his department did not adequately review the inmates’ treatment when he took office in January.

“If I had to do it over again, I would have,” Director Brent Reinke said.

Former Director Vaughn Killeen said he couldn’t afford more aggressive monitoring during his term that ended in December.

“We weren’t happy about the things that were going on down there,” Killeen said. “We didn’t have that level of budget to accommodate full-time monitors.”

Some other states are more vigilant. Washington state, for instance, has 1,000 inmates in Arizona and Minnesota and places full-time inspectors at the prisons. A superintendent visits every six weeks.

Problems with GEO prisons are not limited to Dickens.

Elsewhere in Texas, a female inmate’s family sued GEO in 2006 after she committed suicide at the Val Verde County Jail near the Mexican border. LeTisha Tapia alleged she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a GEO guard after reporting to the warden that guards allowed male and female inmates to have sex.

In March, an investigation into sex abuse allegations at another GEO-run Texas prison led to the firing of a guard who was a convicted sex offender.

And at GEO prisons in Illinois and Indiana, hundreds of inmates rioted this past spring.

The complaints have not hurt the company’s balance sheet. It reported profits of $30 million in 2006, four times the amount reported in 2005.

Inmates at Dickens say conditions have improved since Payne’s suicide.

Hot and cold water problems have been fixed, and cleanliness was judged “adequate,” according to a May 31 report by a new Idaho contract monitor.

But prisoners still complain about sewage from adjacent cells, poor medical and dental care, and a lack of educational programs. Inmates like Robert Coulter, who was convicted of robbery, say authorities should have acted sooner.

“They basically put us down here and just dumped us,” he said.

From the Associated Press

From the Twin Falls Times-News

July 1,2007 – Joshua Palmer – TWIN FALLS TIMES-NEWS

TWIN FALLS – Projects like “Passing on Failure” don’t fall into a reporter’s lap.

The people, places, facts and figures take time to locate.

The Times-News initially requested copies of district policies regarding student retention and absences from 20 school districts in the Magic Valley. All complied.

The newspaper followed up by sending to six districts – chosen to represent size and demographic diversity – written requests for information such as class grades, Idaho Standards Achievement Test scores and gradepoint averages for individual students, without names or other identification.

That’s all public information. But only three of those six districts provided it: Jerome, Wendell and Twin Falls.

The superintendents of the Gooding and Cassia county school districts – who both retired weeks later – did not respond to our requests. In Cassia, follow-up calls to a clerk and the School Board chairwoman finally led to Associate Superintendent Gaylen Smyer, who will become superintendent this month.

“We have a lot of excuses, and none ofthem are good ones,” Smyer said. “We dropped the ball on this one.”

The Hagerman School District allowed the newspaper access to the requested information, but neither the school district nor the newspaper had the personnel available to assemble it.

All six school districts said their data were incomplete because they have changed the way they report student performance. Some school districts could not provide the newspaper with data for an entire academic year.

Gaining this public information was the most formidable challenge in understanding the issues facing middle schools in Idaho.

Education will utilize $1.37 billion of Idaho’s $2.8 billion annual budget during the state’s 2007 fiscal year, which makes it the largest state expenditure. It’s a big investment for a big public task: Preparing a future generation of competitive and productive citizens.

The Times-News’ pursuit for access to testing data is a vital task in reporting on the performance of public schools. Although incomplete, the data confirmed students’ statements about their middle-school struggles.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

Passing on Failure

From the Twin Falls Times-News

Ready or not, middle school students move to next grade

Jul 1,2007 – Joshua Palmer – TWIN FALLS TIMES-NEWS

JEROME – Nicole Brewton would pray from her desk in the back of the classroom that her seventh-grade reading teacher would call on another student.

Nicole dreaded questions about the reading assignments because she really didn’t know how to read. But it wasn’t only reading that plagued Nicole. She was failing the other core classes, too – math and language arts.

“It was really embarassing because the teachers would always call on me and I never knew the answers,” said Nicole, now 13. “That was the time when I just thought I was the only stupid kid in my classes because all the other kids seemed to know the answers.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Twenty-two other seventh-graders at Jerome Middle School were failing basic reading, according to a copy of student grades provided to the Times-News. Like Nicole, many of those students also failed math and language arts.

Each year hundreds of students in junior high or middle school throughout Magic Valley fail at least one of the three core subjects, yet the schools promote them to the next grade. In an education system that builds on the knowledge that students learn in previous grades, a growin number of students are passing on to higher grades without the basic understanding they need to succeed.

What set Nicole apart from other failing students? She was the only Jerome student in 2006-07 repeating seventh grade.

A rare decision

How many middle-school students are passing on failure? The statistics are startling.

In 2005-06, 105 seventh- and eighth-grade students at Jerome Middle School failed math. Sixteen failed reading. But Nicole was the only student retained to repeat a grade at Jerome Middle School.

That pattern is not isolated to Jerome.

In the Twin Falls School District, 176 seventh- and eighth-grade students from Robert Stuart Junior High and Vera C. O’Leary Junior High failed basic math in 2005-06. But the school district did not retain any students that year. Twin Falls has retained only three students in the seventh and eighth grades since 2001.

Both school districts say the decision to retain a student is left to the parent, and educators often try to persuade parents against it. Educators cite several studies – including one by the professional educators association Phi Delta Kappa, summarized online at Magicvalley.com – which suggest that forcing students to repeat a grade may actually be more harmful than moving on.

Eric Anderson, Jerome Middle School principal, attributes educators’ reluctance to retain students mostly to parents’ authority over schools.

“We do try to accommodate the parents because we want to work in cooperation with them,” Anderson said. “But there is also a big concern about lawsuits from parents who might think that their student was unjustly held back.”

Nicole’s parents – not the school – held her back

“We told her that if she didn’t bring her grades up and focus in class, that we would have her repeat the seventh grade,” said Cindy Mosley, Nicole’s mother. “So toward the end of the year when she didn’t bring those grades up, we went to the school and asked to have her repeat.”

The decision terrified Nicole, who knew she would watch her friends graduate to the eighth grade while she stayed behind.

The peer problem

Nicole felt the effects during the first week of the following school year. Jerome Middle School’s incoming seventh-graders, who initially thought she was a transfer student, learned the truth.

Then the teasing and name-calling started.

“Some of the kids would make fun of me and call me stupid because I was held back,” Nicole said. “I felt really alone because all my friends had moved on and most of them wouldn’t even talk to me anymore.”

Only one friend from the previous year would still speak to her – the others, she said, worried about being seen with a “lowerclassman.”

Once again, she tried to disappear in the back of the class. But this time she was hiding from classmates as well as the teacher. It’s a common behavior from students who are retained, and it’s another reason most educators are reluctant to hold students back.

“In many cases you see those students (who were retained) performing worse because they feel like they’re only going to fail again,.” said Jeni Taylor, a Title I instructor at Robert Stuart Junior High, who specializes in remediation. “They feel intimidated by repeating the grade level and by their peers who make it very uncomfortable.”

Although Nicole’s mother was concerned about the harassment, she insisted that education comes first.

“To me, repeating a grade so she can get an education is more important than social promotion,” Mosley said. “Besides, my biggest concern is what will happen when she gets into high school and those grades count.”

At that higher level, failing students have two options – catch up or drop out.

From the Twin Falls Times-News