My Thoughts on Luna's Plan

Superintendent Luna's proposal to reform public education has provoked a profound response and divide. A quote from a teacher will illustrate this point;"I have never seen teacher morale at a lower point; they are frustrated, frightened, saddened, and exhausted by these plans while also trying to educate students. An employee's working conditions directly affect their productivity, no matter how hard they try to conceal it. It is a very scary situation, and it will only be made worse with the passage of these bills.” Idaho public school teacher

Which side is right? I am not sure. The reality is that both sides have valid points. Let me explain why I basically agree with the Luna Plan.

1. I believe that within five years it will be common to have students beginning in late elementary school through college to have one or more classes or parts of classes online or a class or subject partially taught with the help of a computer program. I don't believe that it is necessary to mandate 4 classes. It will happen naturally and they won't replace teachers.
2. The current public education system is expensive and not meeting the needs of many students because of our reliance upon direct-instruction. A better model is self-instruction or teacher moderated self-instruction. Technology is an important part of a self-instruction model.
3. Tax increases are needed to fund the current system. I cannot support tax increases. Changes need to be made.

Never the less, I have concerns about parts of Luna's proposal.
1. The state cannot buy technology and then decide how to use it. It is important that a specific purpose and goal/goals be identified and, then, purchase technology to meet these specific goals. It needs to me measurable and accountable. Luna's plan is not yet developed enough to do this. There will be a committee formed to bring recommendations back next session to justify the use of technology. If this committee does not make a good case for how the technology is to be used, I cannot support it.
2. Class size is a problem. All things being equal it is better to have a smaller class than a larger class. However, I am not completely convinced that the Idaho school system cannot maintain its current class size with fewer employees. This is an issue that should also be studied during the next 12 months. For example, if administrators taught one class per day and librarians and others including teachers, during their prep period, monitored an online class, class sizes could be kept near their current size.
3. Discipline is another issue of concern. We need to give administrators and teachers the ability to hold students accountable. How can we expect teachers to teach classes with more students without giving them the tools to maintain discipline?
4. The present school system has too many students that are not engaged in the learning process. We need more students that want to be in class. Interestingly, I sat through a presentation on how iPods and iPads can be used to engage these students. I am hopeful that technology can actually be part of the solution to this problem.

Finally, what direction should we take if we don't increase technology; if we don't consider and implement Luna's Plan? I have asked this question many times. The response I usually get is to increase taxes. It is my belief that the voters spoke very clearly last November that they did not want a tax increase. The main issue of both the Governor and Superintendent races was if we should raise taxes on education or not. Tom Luna got 60 percent of the vote or 93,000 votes more than his opponent saying he would not raise taxes.

I personally am committed to try to do the almost impossible task of improving public education with less money. I think it can be done and Luna's plan has some potential to accomplish this task; however, it must be monitored very closely and be well thought out before final implementation in 2012 (18 months from now).
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