REFORM: Plan fails this test

I would like to respond to some changes Superintendent Luna has proposed.

1. Eliminating 770 teaching positions and increasing class size. Back in the early 1970s when I began teaching in Idaho I never had classes of less than 30 or more students and I even had up to 38. Every study indicates that the smaller the class size the more successful the students are. I volunteer in fourth grade at Hayden Meadows and there are 31 students in that class. If Luna has his way that class size will go up two units. How many of you parents want your children in a class of 33 or more?

2. Eliminating kindergarten is going backward. When I retired I helped do the IRI testing in grades K-3. This test is given several weeks into the new school year and was used to see what knowledge the students possessed. I had kindergartners that knew their alphabet, numbers, how many sounds a word has and how to write their names. Most of those had gone to preschools, which their parents paid for. Then, there were little ones who didn't know anything; some actually didn't know how to hold a book correctly. If kindergarten is eliminated those who couldn't afford private schools will be even further behind.

3. Computers instead of teachers! Obviously, Luna has never been in charge of 30-plus students in a computer lab, it is a constant job just to help them when they press the wrong button or get somewhere they shouldn't be. Also, who is going to repair them and who will replace them when they are lost? Will our tax money go out-of-state to pay for the computer programs that they would use? There is a company called K-12 Management Inc., located in Virginia, that provides software to Idaho for their online computer classes and just happened to be one of Luna's major election contributors. Will they just happen to get the contract for the online classes he wants?

By suggesting these changes it is obvious that Luna has never been in charge of a classroom. He has never spent time trying to meet the needs of each individual student, preparing lessons for six different subjects each day, meet the demands of testing the students for fluency and comprehension and all the other things the state testing demands. Correcting papers, doing assigned duties, and putting grades into their computers are a few of the other things they have to do daily.

I have had the pleasure of meeting very dedicated, devoted and wonderfully caring teachers over the years. They spend hours of their own time and a lot of their own money to provide what they need in their classrooms and the districts don't provide. It would certainly be nice to have someone with classroom experience in charge so they would understand what a challenging but, rewarding job teaching is and what a great job Idaho's teachers are doing.

SANDY BUNCH

Rathdrum