BOISE — Even though a clear majority of Idaho voters on Nov. 6 cast ballots to overturn three major education reform laws passed in 2011, Idaho Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said Monday that Idahoans continue to want changes in the K-12 public schools.
“I think people have had conversations around the dinner table, and they’ve had conversations around the water cooler, and, you know, at the gym,” Luna said during his first press conference since the votes of disapproval on the three laws that were promoted by the superintendent. “I mean, everywhere I went, and others have gone, there has been this conversation about education reform. So, I think the last thing that anybody wants to see is that education reform in Idaho stops.”
Luna said portions of the so-called “Students Come First” trio of laws remain viable and likely will be presented to the January-starting 2013 Idaho Legislature following discussions with education community stakeholders.
“I think it’s critical that we work together and identify parts of the legislation that, that have support amongst all stakeholders, and, I think, that’s easy to move forward in this next legislative session,” Luna said. “What those are, I don’t know just yet, but I think even during the campaign you heard both sides talk favorably about some of the things that were in each of the propositions.”
At the 53-minute Monday afternoon news conference, Luna called the oft-times rancorous statewide campaign leading up to the defeat of the three measures embodied in Propositions 1, 2, and 3 “a 22-month discussion about education in Idaho at a level and a detail that we’ve never had before.” The three statutes targeted were characterized as the “Luna Laws” by some opponents, and in general had sought to limit Idaho’s teachers union, implement a bonus pay system for educators, and require laptop computers for many Idaho high school students.
Even with the defeat of the reform laws, however, a Nov. 9 opinion from the office of Idaho Attorney General Lawrence G. Wasden indicates “the most legally defensible conclusion” would be that performance bonuses made possible by Senate Bill 1110 prior to the failure of Proposition 2 – which addressed the merit pay law – still are obligated to be paid. That’s $38.8 million for bonuses earned during the 2011-2012 school year to be paid by the districts by Dec. 15, according to Luna’s office.
“This is very good news,” the superintendent said. “Yeah, I mean, you know, I’ve been trying to do pay-for-performance since I was elected in 2006.”
Still, in retrospect, Luna said too much material was packed into the three “complex” Senate bills of 2011 that became law and the objects of the 2012 statewide ballot referenda to which the majority of voters gave a thumbs down.
Election results are expected to receive official certification consideration on Nov. 21.
“If I knew this was going to go to a referendum, then maybe, rather than three bills there should have been a couple dozen bills, and treated each of these things separately so they could have been weighed on their own merits,” Luna said.
While Luna said he continues to push for K-12 education reform, the superintendent also said it looks as if in-person meetings with stakeholders such as the Idaho Education Association — likely wouldn’t begin until after the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.
“We have the beginnings of those meetings in process right now,” Luna said.
He added: “But there’s been some conversations already with other stakeholders in person, and only by phone with the IEA. But, yeah, we’ll sit down and meet with them. We, we did before and we’ll continue going forward there . . . it’s important that we do that in a collaborative way, and we will.”
Luna admitted to regretting one experience from the education reform process of the last 22 months.
“I regret that I ever used the phrase, I think, ‘union thuggery’,” Luna said, explaining that in one 48-hour period three traumatic events occurred personally including that his vehicle had been vandalized. “The other was I was interrupted during a live TV interview by somebody that was unhappy, and if somebody hadn’t gotten in the middle of that, I don’t know how that would have played out,” he said. Also, Luna said, someone identifying himself as a schoolteacher confronted his recently widowed mother at her house in 2011 “to give her a piece of his mind,” while opposing what were then the three Luna-backed education reform bills at the Legislature.
“I can’t imagine a son not being concerned about their mom in that kind of a circumstance, but that’s one time I wished I would have maybe been a little bit more measured in how I responded to that incident,” Luna said.