Two vie for top schools job

BOISE – A businessman and a longtime educator are competing to be Idaho’s next state superintendent of schools – a choice that wouldn’t even have been legal 12 years ago.

Idaho long required that its state superintendent be a certified school administrator who was “actively engaged in educational work” in Idaho schools. But the Legislature repealed that requirement in 1994, leaving just a college degree as the minimum qualification for the job.

“To the best of my knowledge, we’ve never had one that didn’t have an educational background,” said former longtime state Superintendent Jerry Evans, a Republican who served 16 years in the post from 1979 to 1995.

Republican Tom Luna, owner of a weights and measures firm, uses the language of business to talk about what he’d like to accomplish as state school superintendent. He supports doubling the number of new charter schools to open each year because “that’s what the customers of education are demanding,” and “I think we should have a customer-driven education system.”

He decries the bureaucracy of education, and talks of setting up a “career ladder” to allow the best classroom teachers to earn higher pay.

Luna also wants to set up a new “Office of Innovation and Choice in Public Education” and trim spending for non-classroom expenses like busing and administration.

Democrat Jana Jones, the current chief deputy superintendent, is a career educator with a doctorate in education. She’s backing Proposition 1 on the November ballot – which Luna opposes – to require a big increase in school funding. She talks about boosting teacher salaries so Idaho doesn’t lose teachers to nearby states, replacing textbooks so they’re up-to-date, and getting “balance back into our curriculum” after years of pressure to focus on tests results.

“I would like to see us work to application of that knowledge, not just the rote memory and facts and figures we can regurgitate on a multiple-choice test,” Jones said. “I want kids to know it and be able to use it. … We’ve lost ground, I believe, in that area.”

Jones differs from Luna on lifting Idaho’s cap on new charter schools, which now allows six a year to open up. While Luna favors raising the cap to 12, Jones noted that only four opened this year. “That kind of tells me we’re probably in the ballpark of where we should be,” she said.

Jones said, “What really distinguishes me is my background and my experience.” As a former owner of a private preschool and having worked in the state Department of Education for the past 18 years, Jones said, “I do have a full understanding right now of what it takes, and could step into the job day one and make it work.”

Luna noted that he served on the Nampa School Board, on several state commissions, and as an adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. “I think I have a broader background in education …,” he said, “having served at the local, state and federal level, and also a significant business background.”

Luna ran unsuccessfully for superintendent four years ago against current Superintendent Marilyn Howard, a Democrat who is retiring this year after her second term. He obtained his bachelor’s degree by distance-learning just in time to file for the office four years ago.

He said the biggest challenge facing Idaho schools is “the status quo,” adding, “I think the status quo is the biggest challenge that faces any industry or organization, either government or private. … Too many good ideas in public education are thwarted for one reason and one reason only: It’s because it’s not accommodating to the bureaucracy.”

Jones said besides funding, she believes the greatest challenge facing Idaho schools is rebuilding confidence. As she campaigns around the state, she said, people tell her that public education is failing – but their local school is an exception.

“I think we’ve seen kind of an attack on the public school system,” she said. “We are doing good things for kids in this state – we’ve made great gains, our test scores are showing gains across all populations of kids.”

But she said teachers and others have stepped up to make those gains despite funding problems, and if funding isn’t increased, those gains are threatened.