More Idaho high school students should go to college.

They need more rigorous math and science instruction.

And the state needs to find more highly qualified teachers — those who have degrees in the subjects they are teaching.

Those are among several recommendations expected to be unveiled Wednesday by a group of Idaho business leaders, parents and educators as a way for Idaho to provide a high-quality, cost-effective education.

The group, called the Education Alliance of Idaho, was formed after Gov. Butch Otter challenged business leaders in 2007 to look for ways to improve education in Idaho. Otter will introduce the alliance and the report at a news conference Wednesday morning.

The four broad goals and 17 recommendations are aimed at improving Idaho's educational quality as compared to the rest of the country, said Guy Hurlbutt, Alliance chairman.

"This is going to bring us up a notch," said Milford Terrell, a State Board of Education member who worked on the proposals.

But many educators worry that these goals will cost money at a time when Idaho public education could face unprecedented cutbacks in its $1.4 billion budget in 2010-11.

The goals are listed without a price tag, because they haven't yet been narrowly defined, alliance members say.

Others say the goals lack any mention of early childhood education, an unpopular issue in the Legislature that has made little headway because many lawmakers say it should be happening in the home, not at school.

Little in the recommendations is new.

A proposal that high school students graduate with up to 30 college credits goes back to plans offered by state schools Superintendent Tom Luna since he took office in 2007 to increase availability of college credits in high schools as a way to help kids get a leg up on higher education and save some money.

Demanding more rigor in high school math and science dates back to high school reform pushed by the State Board of Education earlier this decade. Then, the board succeeded in adding an additional year of math and science to high school graduation credits, beginning with the class of 2013.

Nor is the alliance's work the first shot at reform in Idaho public schools.

Since the 1990s, Idaho has retooled its curriculum, added achievement tests and paid for additional tutoring — much of it as part of federal No Child Left Behind requirements — as ways to improve the state's public education.

Some other reform efforts are in the works, too.

A plan called Treasure Valley Education Promise - in the early talking stages - would identify students and help create in them a vision for going to college. The plan would lay out a curriculum for students, involve them in mentoring, and even help pay for college. The plan is an outgrowth of the Idaho's Statesman's Vision for the Valley project.

The most important short-term goal to come out of the alliance report, however, may be that a diverse group of people representing different educational and business interests worked for about two years to reach unanimity on goals for education in Idaho, Hurlbutt said.

Alliance members say the proposals — such as increasing the number of high school students going on to college or technical school within a year of graduation to 60 percent from about 50 percent — need fleshing out.

"This is just a beginning," said Christine Donnell, former Meridian School District superintendent and executive director of the Idaho Business Coalition for Education Excellence, an alliance member. "We have not defined the how."

It is the "how" that worries people like Linda Clark, Meridian School District superintendent. Many of the alliance recommendations will cost money. No one knows how much, because the plans are not yet detailed.

But Clark and other superintendents say they are looking at a bleak financial year in 2010-11 as falling revenues threaten a record cut in the public education budget.

The alliance's goals are lofty, she said. But the goal should be how to sustain the public education system in the midst of a looming funding crisis where some have predicted that education cuts could go 10 percent or higher and affect teacher jobs.

The funding problems may be a challenge for schools, Terrell said, but that is no reason to put long-term goals on the shelf and forget about them.

"If we don't start looking ahead, we are going to go nowhere," he said.

Early childhood education advocates say much in the list of recommendations makes sense, but early learning should be a part of it. Early learning plays a significant role in how well students do later in school, they say.

"It is an important piece of that continuum," said Karen Mason, executive director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.

But the alliance didn't involve stakeholders from early childhood education, Donnell said. "We know that we should be concerned about learning from (birth) to 6," she said. "We all agreed it needs to be addressed."

Bill Roberts: 377-6408