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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Teacher Brain Drain? Some ID Professionals are Leaving

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Tuesday, June 28, 2011   

BOISE, Idaho - Contentious education reform debate, school funding cuts, and larger class sizes . . . Those are some of the reasons a number of Idaho educators are citing in their decisions to leave the profession, or to accept teaching positions in other states.

Meghan Ridley, who resigned as a special education teacher in Rathdrum, testified before the Legislature about funding cuts, and school reforms that educators were excluded from during the design phase. She says it was obvious to her that most legislators weren't listening about what's best for children.

"It's pretty heart-breaking, really, I think, to watch something that you know is so important be so degraded by politicians."

Ridley has been accepted into the doctoral program at Gonzaga University and says she doesn't know yet if she'll return to the education field when she graduates.

Jacki Sare and her husband Ken are leaving teaching jobs in Rexburg for positions in Wyoming. She says they'll be paid about $20,000 more per year than they have been getting, and receive a housing stipend. She says the money will help as she cares for her aging parents, especially in light of pay cuts last year. For her, though, the bigger issues are state rules and requirements that she believes were no longer in the best interest of her special education students.

"Ultimately, the main reason I am totally burned out - the ISAT Alternate Test. I don't even spend time with students any more."

The ISAT Alternate program is for students with cognitive disabilities and Sare says it requires extensive photo, video and document submissions to the state so that test scores can be calculated for those students.


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