Senate panel advances ed reform

BOISE - Lawmakers voted Tuesday to advance the third piece of a plan to reform Idaho's public schools with legislation to boost technology in the classroom.

The Senate Education Committee voted 6-3 to move the Republican-backed legislation forward. Supporters said they were convinced by public schools chief Tom Luna's argument that lawmakers needed to take action in the 2011 session to restructure how Idaho's scarce education dollars are spent.

Luna contends the current public school system, which has lost roughly $200 million in the past two years and faces additional cuts in the upcoming year, is no longer sustainable.

"We have to make change," said Sen. Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls. "We cannot live with the system that we have for one more year, in my opinion."

The panel sent the measure, which has undergone significant changes since it was first introduced, to the full Senate for debate.

The bill is the centerpiece of Luna's three-part reform package. Gov. Butch Otter has signed two other parts of the reform plan into law, phasing out tenure for new educators and restricting collective bargaining while introducing teacher merit pay.

The biggest piece of the reform package aims to reform schools with more technology. It was reworked in the Idaho Senate amid protest over provisions that would have hiked class sizes and cut 770 teacher jobs to pay for new technology upgrades and cover budget shortfalls.

The previous bill also triggered strong opposition from teachers, parents and students over provisions that required online learning while arming high school students with laptops.

A new version of the bill was introduced on Friday. It directs the state Board of Education to draft standards governing the online course requirements. And students starting in the ninth grade would still eventually get laptops, but teachers will get them first along with training.

The bill no longer increase class sizes, leaving to the local school districts decisions on how to allocate less state funding and the number of educators to retain. But to do this, the bill would shift money from school funding used primarily for teacher salaries over the next five years to finance the technology upgrades and the teacher pay-for-performance plan.

Public school trustees, administrators and the statewide teachers union testified in support of efforts to increase technology in the classroom and other reforms, but said they were opposed to how Idaho would pay for it under the new bill.

Lawmakers for the past two years have given school districts the flexibility to weather the economic downturn, allowing them the option of financial emergencies to negotiate lower teacher pay and benefits to help balance budgets, said Karen Echeverria, executive director of the Idaho School Boards Association.

"School districts have been through some very tough financial times for the last two years and we believe that we have proven to you that we can handle the responsibility that was given to us through the financial emergency statute," Echeverria said. "Unfortunately we believe that this legislation, as written, takes some of that flexibility away."

Trustees understand Idaho's education system is facing serious funding issues, she said, and they are willing to make the necessary cuts in the upcoming budget year.

"However, to place a law that forces a reduction in funding over a five-year period without knowing what the revenues will be over the next few years is to my knowledge an unprecedented move, and one that we simply cannot support," Echeverria said.