LUNA: Recall effort misguided

Recently during my 4-year-old son's soccer game there was an organized effort of gathering signatures to recall State Superintendent Tom Luna and repeal the recent school reform legislation. While directing little kids on the field during the game, one of the soccer coaches actually took the time to encourage the parents on the sideline to sign the petition because "Tom Luna doesn't like children."

I certainly have no problem with citizens expressing their opinions and exercising their rights, but I felt that collecting signatures and insulting elected officials at a youth sporting event was extremely inappropriate. By the way, elections are what we have in place to remove people from office with views not in line with the majority. Seeking to recall an elected official for anything other than unethical behavior is just plain silly.

As a taxpayer repeatedly asked for more money through levies to fund the same antiquated school system, I am personally very thankful for the reforms conceived by Tom Luna and implemented by the state legislature. In place now is a system wonderful in many ways, but underachieving in many others. I suppose one could keep on pouring money into that old clunker in your garage, but at some point it seems to make sense to drive something different.

Some of the upcoming changes such as laptop computers to decrease the need to buy books yearly and better prepare students for the job market, creating a more fair salary system based on merit instead of simply how many years one clocked in, and creating better accountability for how schools spend money seem like reasonable changes to me. Like everyone else, I will be waiting to see how effective and financially sound these changes turn out to be, but I am grateful that Idaho has decided that the status quo is not good enough.

I am perplexed why so many people were spending so much energy at youth soccer games to keep the current education system intact. Do they really think the current system is the best one for our kids? Do they really think in these economic times we can't do better with our education dollars? Why are they so scared of changes designed to make things better? And do they honestly think that people looking outside the box such as Tom Luna really don't like children?

I am sure that these people like children too, but I do have to wonder if their stubborn adherence to the old comfortable way of doing things is in fact doing children a great disservice.

CHAD SCAROLA

Coeur d'Alene