And now for Tom Luna's next trick
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna’s Students Come First education reforms continue to grow in magnitude and achievement. In a May 24 Idaho Republican Party news release announcing that Luna will join GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s education advisory team, the state’s school chief claimed his reforms would “ensure every student can graduate from high school and go on to postsecondary education without the need for remediation.”
One in four Idaho high school graduates attending a four-year college require remedial math or English — classes they have to pay for but which do not count toward their diploma. For kids attending a two-year college, the remediation rate is 50 percent.
This is a huge problem, and one Luna has apparently solved by throwing a few laptops around and making online learning a graduation requirement. Next, Lunatech will be curing cancer, fixing the national economy and resolving the differences between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Luna is blowing smoke. That’s what politicians do. And that’s always been the problem. Luna isn’t an educator. He’s never taught class. Luna has no idea whether his reforms will do anything other than enrich the for-profit education factories that helped elevate him to this position. Well, that’s not entirely true. Luna’s reforms have resulted in bigger class sizes and increased teacher turnover. But we don’t have any idea whether Lunatech will help even one student. That’s because Idaho is the nation’s guinea pig, a state boldly traveling where nobody else dares. There’s a reason for that. Peru, the one country that has done a massive laptop drop, saw few tangible results. Then again, most states see their kids as more than a way to reward campaign contributors and build political futures.
Of course, some have always seen an education renaissance in the latest gadgets. Academic journals are filled with stories about how the television set and movie projector would forever alter the classroom. The truth is that nothing is more important in your local school than having good teachers who can relate to their students. Also, clearly, progress in education does not come from the top down. It’s a product of local officials collaborating with parents and school board members to determine what works best for them.
The good news for Luna is that he should fit right in on Team Romney, which is loaded with top-downers from the Bush administration who gave us the disastrous No Child Left Behind “reforms” and, naturally, folks not above skimming a healthy profit off education budgets. The better news for Idaho is that a Romney victory may result in a plush gig for Luna in the federal department that most deserves to be shuttered. Clearly, the nation’s loss would be Idaho’s gain.
Corey Taule
Opinion editor
Idaho Falls Post Register