By Dale Chu
Idaho is seeking public comment on its waiver proposal, which includes two substantive changes to the state’s assessment framework:
- Replace the state’s third grade assessment with an early literacy screener
- Replace the state’s eleventh grade assessment with a menu of college and career exams’
Idaho’s state superintendent framed this as an effort to “reduce the testing burden [and] give high school students more flexibility to choose an assessment aligned with their future goals.” Both are reasonable aims. But as currently contemplated,
Idaho’s proposal risks reducing transparency for parents and other stakeholders by weakening the comparability that underpins meaningful accountability.
Start with third grade. Idaho currently administers both the ISAT and the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI). The proposal would rely on the IRI in place of the broader statewide English language arts assessment. If the IRI measured the breadth of Idaho’s third-grade ELA standards, no waiver would be necessary; it could simply serve as the statewide test. The fact that the state is seeking a waiver suggests the IRI is not fully aligned with state standards. That raises a basic question: would this shift give parents more information or less? Reducing duplication makes sense. Narrowing what is measured does not.
The high school proposal presents a more structural challenge. Idaho is considering allowing districts to substitute a range of assessments (e.g., SAT, ASVAB, WorkKeys) in place of a single statewide academic test. The impulse to accommodate multiple pathways is understandable. But when students take different tests with varying rigor and content coverage, results are no longer meaningfully comparable. Subgroup reporting becomes harder to interpret. Protections for marginalized students erode. And parents lose a common yardstick.
This is where the federal government needs to get out in front. If Washington is serious about returning authority to the states, it must clearly define the guardrails. State flexibility is only durable if parents retain access to clear, comparable assessment data. Without that foundation, “local control” risks becoming fragmented standards and uneven transparency.