[Vision2020] Ybarra can learn from Luna's deeds, not words

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (December 6, 2014) Lewiston Tribune.

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Ybarra can learn from Luna's deeds, not words
Marty Trillhaase
To hear outgoing state schools Superintendent Tom Luna tell it, his school overhaul package faltered due to poor messaging.
Maybe he believes that. Or perhaps Luna is simply burnishing his credentials.
Either way his successor, fellow Republican Sherri Ybarra, would be wise to ignore him.
The latest example of Luna's revisionist history showed up in Sunday's question-and-answer session with Robert Ehlert, editor of the Idaho Statesman's editorial page. In it, Luna repeats the mantra - shared by Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter and others - that voters overwhelmingly rejected the so-called Luna Laws in a 2012 referendum because of process, not product.
The product sought to undermine teacher collective bargaining rights, tie teacher compensation to standardized testing and divert dollars meant for teachers into online instruction and laptop computers.
The process, Luna says, fell short because he showcased the idea of giving every student a laptop. "That was a phrase I made in passing. And who would have thought that one phrase - you would have thought that at the end of the arguments that had been made that my plan was that, after you give every ninth-grader a laptop and after they've had their fill of pornography, they hock it at the nearest pawn shop and we never see them or the laptop again. That's how this was spun."
Luna said he also lost his temper with opponents during the 2011 legislative session. Somebody slashed his tires. Another person accosted him during a television interview. Someone else showed up at his mother's home.
"After all that, I made the comment that this was like 'union thuggery,' " Luna said. "I wish I wouldn't have let my anger boil over at that press conference like I did."
Nowhere in this presentation did Luna come to terms with this reality: The product failed because the product was defective. Granted, lawmakers have reinstated some of the collective bargaining language in Proposition 1. But every time someone gets close to Luna's merit pay idea, it blows up. The latest example involved elements of a teacher tier licensing plan the State Board of Education just pulled off the table. And nobody has since mentioned putting more money into technology and less into teachers. However vague its contours, the education reform package Otter's task force produced spends millions of dollars on high-quality human teachers.
But it wasn't just a few ill-chosen words or a temper tantrum that sank Luna - and left him so politically toxic that he couldn't win a third term.
Luna's approach to the job was fatally flawed.
You saw it when he depicted himself as a friend of educators during his successful 2010 re-election campaign, only to turn on teachers the following year with his school overhaul package.
That wasn't merely process. That was political fraud.
And you're seeing it again when he tells Ehlert all Ybarra needs to overcome the hits her credibility suffered during the campaign is "a very successful first session with the Legislature."
That makes the state schools superintendent sound like just another politician whose success or failure hinges on her ability to prevail with 105 fellow politicians in the Legislature.
Not so.
This is one office without much formal authority. Local patrons and school boards take care of the local operations. Lawmakers control the purse. The superintendent's power comes from the bully pulpit. It hinges on her ability to work with students, parents and teachers.
From the day he first ran for the office in 2002 until now, Luna has gravitated toward the political class while handling his core educational constituency with antagonism.
Left behind is a legacy of ill will and distrust between people in the classrooms and the state Department of Education.
If Ybarra intends to reverse that, she should stop listening to Luna's words and closely examine his deeds. - M.T.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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