One-third of the students who took the Idaho Reading Indicator test last spring are not reading at grade level, according to recently-released results. 

About 91,400 students in grades K-3 took the exam, and about 31,400 were not at the level they should be. 

Overall, Idaho students dropped in proficiency from 69.1% reading at grade level in spring 2022, to 66.6% reading at grade level in spring 2023. The State Department of Education said the decline is due to a new norming system. 

Each spring and fall, Idaho students in kindergarten through third grade take the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI). The assessment is used to gauge how well Idaho students are reading. 

But it’s not all bad news. 

Here’s a look at the schools and districts throughout the state where students are performing the best and showing the most improvement. 

We’ve grouped the highest performers into the following categories:

• traditional schools
• charter, magnet, and nontraditional schools
• traditional districts
• nontraditional local education agencies

There’s also a ranking of the 10 largest traditional districts.

Before you look through the lists, keep a few things in mind:

• These lists don’t account for enrollment differences (with the exception of the large district ranking). In smaller schools and districts, it can be easier to achieve high proficiency rates than in large schools/districts because data more easily skews high or low based on the performance of a relative few.
• The lists also don’t account for demographic differences, such as a student body’s affluence, English proficiency, or other such factors that can affect a school’s test results. 
• Some data has been redacted by the state, so not all districts and schools are represented. 
• While we strive to compare the most similar types of schools and districts, there are still a number of differences that aren’t accounted for (like those mentioned above and others). No comparison can be completely fair because of that. 
• For complete datasets, click on the links at the bottom of the article. 

Highest Performers: Traditional schools

BY SCORE

More than half of the schools where students performed the best are located in the urban Treasure Valley. 

BY GROWTH

By comparison, schools where students improved the most from fall to spring are located throughout the state, and most are in rural areas.

Highest Performers: Charter, magnet, nontraditional schools

BY SCORE 

More than half of the top-performing nontraditional schools are in the urban Treasure Valley — as was the case with top-performing traditional schools. 

BY GROWTH

Three of the schools where students improved the most from fall to spring are in East Idaho, while another four are in the Treasure Valley. Nontraditional local education agencies had a lower bar to get on this list (15% more students reading at grade level) than traditional districts (25.4% more students reading at grade level). 

Highest Performers: Traditional Districts

BY SCORE

Many of the districts on this list are smaller and rural. 

BY GROWTH

Rural districts also dominated the top-ten list of greatest improvement from fall to spring.

Highest Performers: Nontraditional local education agencies

BY SCORE

Seven of the LEAs on this list are located in the urban Treasure Valley. 

BY GROWTH

LEAs with the greatest improvement were more geographically diverse. 

Largest traditional districts, ranked

BY SCORE

West Ada topped the list of large traditional districts with the greatest percentage of students reading at grade level. Oneida County school district, which includes an online school that enrolled students statewide, was at the bottom with fewer than half of its students reading at grade level. 

BY GROWTH

Bonneville school district, in Idaho Falls, had the greatest percentage of students improve from fall to spring. In Oneida County, student performance declined, with 11.3% fewer students reading at grade level by the end of the school year. 

Full datasets are also available for those interested: IRI scores by school; IRI scores by district; IRI growth by school; IRI growth by district. 

EdNews Data Analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.