Education reform inches closer
BOISE - The Idaho Senate voted 20-15 on Thursday to pass the third piece of a plan to reform Idaho's public schools.
The bill will advance to the House despite opposition from public school trustees, administrators and the statewide teachers union over how the legislation will fund new technology upgrades in the classroom. The measure is part of a Republican-backed reform plan authored by schools chief Tom Luna, with backing from Republican Gov. Butch Otter.
"We are another step closer to reforming Idaho's public education system," Luna said in a statement after the centerpiece of his three-part reform package passed the Senate.
The legislation has undergone significant changes since it was first introduced in the 2011 Idaho Legislature. It was reworked amid protest over provisions in the previous bill that would have required online learning and armed students with laptops while also increasing class sizes and cutting 770 teaching jobs to pay for the reforms.
Under the new bill, Idaho would shift money from public school funding used primarily for teacher salaries to fund the new technology upgrades and a new teacher pay-for-performance plan. For some lawmakers, that funding mechanism was still a sticking point, even though they supported other parts of the bill.
"My fear is that schools will have little choice, with less money for teacher salaries, but to increase classroom size," said Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls.
Davis and seven other Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the measure after nearly three hours of debate on the Senate floor.
"If teachers are laid off to buy laptops, which is what this bill does, who will be in the classroom?" said Republican Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint.
While opponents also argued that the bill lacked consensus, given concerns from educational stakeholders such at the Idaho School Boards Association and Idaho Association of School Administrators, supporters countered that the state could not wait for the economy to improve before making these investments in the classroom.
"If we want education to improve we have to be willing to do things differently, we have to be willing to spend what we are currently spending differently," said Republican Sen. John Goedde, who chairs the Senate Education Committee and co-sponsored the legislation alongside Republican leaders.
"If we only cut more, then hope our students do well, we have failed them," Goedde said.
While the previous legislation would have required students to take four online course credits in order to graduate, the new bill directs the state Board of Education to draft standards governing the online course requirements and would form a state task force to study the implementation of the laptop program.
Students starting in the ninth grade would still eventually get the mobile computing devices, but teachers will get them first along with training.
Most state senators were convinced by the argument that they needed to take action in the 2011 session to restructure how Idaho's scarce education dollars are spent.
The governor has already signed two other parts of the Luna's reform package into law, phasing out tenure for new educators and restricting collective bargaining while introducing teacher merit pay. A group of parents and teacher union representatives have taken initial steps to launch a referendum on the new laws, filing paperwork with the secretary of state's office.
The Idaho Education Association condemned passage of the third bill, calling it "budget-busting, job-killing legislation."
"The legislation moves across the Statehouse despite the fact it is opposed by the Idaho Education Association, the Idaho School Boards Association, the Idaho Association of School Administrators, and the Idaho PTA," the union said in a statement.