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VERIFY: Were claims during the KTVB gubernatorial debate on Idaho education true?

The KTVB Verify team fact-checked claims made about education by Republican candidate for governor Lt. Gov. Brad Little and Democratic candidate Paulette Jordan.

BOISE — During Monday's KTVB Idaho gubernatorial debate, a lot of education numbers and rankings were thrown out - but were they all accurate?

STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES

Throughout the campaign, Lt. Gov Brad Little has mentioned that Idaho leads every neighboring state in ACT scores.

On that, Little is correct: Idaho's average ACT score is higher than all six bordering states.

According to official 2017 ACT data, Idaho students averaged a composite score of 22.3. That placed Idaho 17th among states and the District of Columbia.

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As Paulette Jordan noted in the debate though, It's important to point out that only 38 percent of graduates tested for the ACT in Idaho.

"My opponent is continuing to mislead the public when he is saying that we are having a higher success rate on the ACT scoring. The state of Idaho does not fund the ACT scoring; we fund SAT, more students take the SAT," Jordan said.

KTVB can Verify that Jordan is correct when it comes to Idaho funding the SAT test.

Every spring, the state funds the SAT at every public high school. In 2018, 100 percent of Idaho high school graduates took the SAT.

So, when it comes to achievement it can be argued, that is a better sample size than the ACT test.

For the 2018 SAT, Idaho's average score was 1,001, which comes in below the national average of 1068.

TEACHER PAY, IDAHO EDUCATION RANKINGS

Jordan continued on to say in the debate: "Our current representative has said to me in the last few debates that we have increased the rate of pay for these teachers when we were still last in the country in teacher pay."

KTVB can Verify that no, Idaho is not last in teacher pay. In 2017, Idaho came in at 43rd - up from 47th in 2016.

Jordan also mentioned: "We are still less than 40 percent or 40th, 47th, 49th, 50th, 51st when it comes to rankings when it comes to education in this country."

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Jordan didn't specifically mention what categories they were for, so the following is where Idaho ranks in some important education categories.

According to 2017 data of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, from the National Education Association, Idaho Ranks 51st in spending per student in fall enrollment, again, 43rd in average teacher pay, and seventh in students enrolled per teacher.

Education Week's Quality Counts 2018 report has Idaho at 39th when it comes to the high school graduation rate. That report gave Idaho a D on its overall state report card, with a C-minus specifically in K-12 achievement.

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READ MORE OF KTVB'S PRE-ELECTION COVERAGE:

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