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June 13, 2011 in Idaho
Luna moves on reforms even as referendums make ballot
Students Come First Technology Task Force opens its first meeting Monday with comments from Idaho schools Supt. Tom Luna.
(Full-size photo)
BOISE - Idaho state schools chief Tom Luna opened the deliberations of a 39-member task force Monday that’ll help determine how to implement big new school technology investments, even as the Idaho Secretary of State’s office issued certificates officially placing three referendums on the November 2012 ballot to overturn the reforms.
The final tally, issued Monday, showed each of the three referendum petitions on Luna’s “Students Come First” reform bills received more than 74,000 signatures, far more than the required 47,432.
Nevertheless, Luna said Monday, “We’re implementing the law. … It’s the law of the land. We can’t have the education system in Idaho in limbo, so our job now is to implement this properly. … That’s why this committee is meeting today.”
Senate Education Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, agreed. “You move forward,” said Goedde, who sponsored the bills and serves on the task force. “It’s still law.”
The three bills, which Luna has dubbed “Students Come First,” remove most collective bargaining rights from Idaho teachers, impose a new merit-pay plan, and shift funds from teacher salaries to technology boosts, including a phased-in program to provide every Idaho high school student with a “mobile computing device” within five years and a new focus on online learning.
“We’ve got our work ahead of us,” said House Education Chairman Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene. “We’ll just move forward as if the referendums are not going to pass.”
The task force, which met all day Monday, is scheduled to hear Tuesday from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise.
“This is just the beginning,” Luna said. “There’s meetings every month from here on out.”
Luna said the two former governors, who chair the Digital Learning Council, a group they launched in 2010 to promote “high quality digital learning,” contacted him and “wanted to know how they could help.” Idaho won’t pay anything to bring the two to Boise to address the task force, Luna’s office said.
Luna told the task force Idaho must become a “global leader” in education, saying, “Our economic competition is global and it’s focused and it’s fierce and unrelenting.” He said, “The fact is that everyone in the world wants our jobs, and for the first time ever they have the means to take them.” Jobs will go “where the educated workforce is,” he said. “Intellectual capacity is the currency of the 21st century, and other countries have figured this out.”
Luna said the answer is “a comprehensive and systemic change” to Idaho’s education system, focusing on technology and online learning. “We have to transform every classroom in Idaho. Some are already on the way there,” he said. “We have to bring 21st century technology and all that it makes possible into every classroom.” He said that’s the key to making sure all students have up-to-date educational opportunity, no matter where they live, and despite the state’s budget crunch.
“Do we wait for the economy to improve, do we wait for increased revenues? We can’t,” he said. “We have to be willing to spend the money that we know we have differently in order to give every student equal educational opportunity.”
Luna’s reforms have been particularly controversial as they come at a time when Idaho is cutting, not increasing, funding for schools. As a result, the bills tap teacher salary funds to pay for the new technology initiative and the merit-pay bonuses; hundreds of teaching jobs could be eliminated, depending on how local school districts cope with the cuts.
Chelsea Gaona-Lincoln, spokeswoman for the Committee to Recall Tom Luna, said her group has collected more than 75,000 signatures in an attempt to force a recall election against Luna in August; it has until June 27 to gather 158,107 to force a special election.
Goana-Lincoln, whose group has criticized Luna for not revealing his reform plan until after he was re-elected in 2010, said Luna’s task force is now “having that discussion that should have taken place when he was getting re-elected … since it didn’t happen ahead of time.”
Lost wolf pup finds temporary home 
oneanddone on June 13 at 5:14 p.m.
Luna is a schlep and he along with his idiotic policies will be gone via recall and referendum in short order. He’ll be a comical footnote in Idaho history. And who knows, maybe Wheaties will even rescind his “college” degree. The sin though is not his - he’s just a stalking horse for the bozos in Boise (Goedde, Nonini, Otter) who desperately want to gut public education and funnel those funds to their business puppeteers. It’s a good start though. Adieu chump.
PlanB on June 13 at 5:31 p.m.
On-line learning has it’s limited place, but is largely a big business scam which will never be anywhere near as effective as a decent teacher.
mrd on June 13 at 6:11 p.m.
goedde and nonini have been notorious for attacking education and need to be gone. luna is past history, he will not see another elected office in Idaho. When they are gone, the education system will prosper. The educational system has worked very well as was (based on national testing data) but now these politicians have decided they know more than people who are actually in the field. Get rid of them all.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on June 13 at 6:53 p.m.
Keep voting republican Idaho.
RedCedar on June 13 at 10:13 p.m.
At least we’ll now get to have the honest public debate that we should have had before Mr. Luna railroaded his plans through the legislature. There is a real need for public school reform, and perhaps some parts of the plan will be helpful to that end, but the way they were rammed through was wrong.
My biggest concern at this point is what sort of contracts have already been promised, privately at least, for the laptops and software. I suspect there was some real back-room dealing going on there. Technology goes out of date even faster than textbooks, and it’s much more expensive to “update”. By the time the laptops are 3 or 4 years old, they’ll be worthless, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the software was being sold/leased on a yearly basis. I don’t know if the software is as good as real teachers or not, or if it’s cheaper than real teachers, but at least when we pay a real teacher the money stays in Idaho rather than going to Utah.
PlanB on June 13 at 10:59 p.m.
RedCeder, yes I absolutely agree that Luna’s idea of how technology will help is childish at best. He doesn’t seem to have much of an idea of what the cost will truly be.
slfisher on June 14 at 2:58 a.m.
Yeah, I bet Gov. Jeb Bush, whose brother Neil owns an online education company, contacted him to see “how he could help.”