Gov. Brad Little told a gathering of public school administrators Thursday that state leaders are committed to bolstering literacy, as reading test scores again fell short of state goals this year.
“There is no daylight between the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education and myself on improving literacy,” Little said. “We want to work with you to move that needle.”
The Republican governor spoke to the school leaders at the Boise Centre amid the Idaho Association of School Administrators’ annual summer conference. Hundreds of public school superintendents, principals and other administrators traveled to the state capital for workshops, motivational speeches and networking.
Little’s message was a mix of sweet and sour. He touted recent state investments in education, including $1.5 billion for school facilities, a 16% increase in teacher pay and $47 million for literacy, much of which is paying for full-day kindergarten.
But the new spending needs to spur growth in reading, he said. All the investment “doesn’t do us any good” if literacy doesn’t improve “for all kids, all classes, all communities.”
“I have to justify to legislators why we put that big amount of money into literacy,” Little said. “Some of the districts have done an incredible job, but unfortunately, on average throughout the state, we’ve got more work to do…I’m committed to helping you with the resources for those kids.”
This year’s Idaho Reading Indicator scores showed modest gains in reading proficiency since 2023. But scores have persistently fallen short of state goals, and they remain behind pre-pandemic levels.
This year, 66.5% of students read at grade level while nearly 70% of students were proficient in 2019. About 17%, or nearly 15,000 students tested, weren’t proficient this year. The Department of Education aims to have fewer than 12% of K-3 students reading below grade level by 2027.
Little on Thursday also trumpeted the rollout of Idaho Launch, the scholarship program he spearheaded that gives high school graduates up to $8,000 for college or job training. The governor said he hopes Launch — along with other scholarship programs, like Advanced Opportunities — will lift the state’s 37% go-on rate by 20 percentage points in the coming years.
“We see kids and they’re either not going to get a big scholarship (or) their parents don’t have the means for them to go on, Launch is going to be a huge neutralizer there,” he said. “All it’s doing is moving the affordability closer to what it was when I went to school.”
