Once again, charter schools have dominated the state’s top-10 list when it comes to standardized test performance – this time on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test. 

Only two traditional school districts – Rockland and Troy – had similarly high percentages of students scoring proficient or better on the ISAT math and/or ELA tests. Nontraditional schools also permeated top-10 lists for SAT scores. 

Here are the state’s top performers:

ISAT Math Top 10

ISAT ELA Top 10

Yet, nontraditional districts/schools are also among some of the state’s worst performers. 

Here are the bottom 10 performing districts and charters in Idaho:

ISAT Math Bottom 10

ISAT ELA Bottom 10

To see how your child’s district or charter stacked up, go here for math scores and here for ELA scores. 

State Department celebrates improvements

Statewide, math and ELA scores improved, but are still far from reaching the state’s standardized testing goals. 

The State Department of Education released full ISAT data on Friday, and touted the improvements from nearly across-the-board drops in 2021. 

“This is great news and reinforces our faith in Idaho educators, who have worked hard to reverse pandemic learning loss and get students back on the path to success,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra said. “The onset of COVID-19 in spring 2020 disrupted the ISAT along with all Idaho school operations, so we weren’t surprised when last year’s results declined … But we also aren’t surprised that this year shows student achievement is on the rebound.”

Two student groups showed “notable improvements from 2021 to 2022,” according to the SDE. In that time period, students from military families increased their math proficiency rate by 6.3 percentage points, while students from foster families improved their ELA proficiency rate by 5.3 percentage points. 

At-risk students are among the state’s lowest performers

But other student groups showed a lack of growth. Most Idaho sophomores, for example, have failed to achieve proficiency in math for years. 

And while foster students showed ELA improvements, they still have some of the lowest proficiency rates in that subject. 

According to the SDE’s demographic data, students who are Asian or Pacific Islander, not economically disadvantaged, without disabilities, white, and/or female, did the best on the ISAT ELA test. Those who have limited English proficiency,  have disabilities, are migrant, are in foster care, and/or are homeless performed the worst.

Here are the ISAT ELA proficiency rates, broken down by demographics:

At-risk groups also underperformed on the math portion of the exam.

Students who are Asian or Pacific Islander, not economically disadvantaged, white, without disabilities and/or not limited in English proficiency, did the best on the ISAT math test. Those who have limited English proficiency,  have disabilities, are migrant, are in foster care, and/or are African American fared the worst. 

Here are the ISAT math proficiency rates, broken down by demographics:

The Idaho Standards Achievement Test is administered each spring (except in 2020) to all public school students in grades 3 through 8 and 10, gauging their proficiency in ELA/literacy and math. Scores are sorted into four categories: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. More than 169,000 students took the ISAT this past spring, up from about 163,000 in 2021.

This year for the first time, students in grades 5, 8 and 11 took the newly developed science ISAT. A total of 70,029 students took the new science assessment, and 40.8 percent of students scored as either proficient or advanced. The results cannot be used to gauge student progress because there are no previous results for comparison.

Statewide, district and school-level results are available on the Assessment Results web page, along with results for grade levels and demographic groups.

Idaho EdNews will follow up next week with more stories behind these numbers. If you have a story you’d like to share, send the details to [email protected]. 

Data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.