By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

BOISE, Idaho – Wayne Hoffman, executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, has seen first-hand how low teachers unions will sink in their effort to block education reforms.

“My 11-year-old son came home from school one day last year, saying that teachers would stop receiving paychecks if the reforms passed,” Hoffman tells EAGnews.org.

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The reforms in question came from the “Students Come First” education package designed by State Superintendent Tom Luna and supported by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter.

The teacher unions’ misinformation campaign was designed to scare Idahoans, in hopes that lawmakers would shy away from approving Luna and Otter’s bold reforms.

It didn’t work.

By April 2011, lawmakers had passed all three “Students Come First” bills, establishing the Gem State as a national leader in the education reform movement.

And teachers still received their paychecks.

But approval of the reforms triggered a Code Red response from the National Education Association and its state affiliate, the Idaho Education Association. Immediately after the reforms were signed into law, the unions began bankrolling Idahoans for Responsible Education Reform, a group dedicated to repealing what they derisively call “the Luna laws.”

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The group gathered enough signatures to get three repeal proposals onto the November ballot, and is currently waging a media campaign to gin up support among voters.

A state and national issue

Supporters of “the Luna laws” are preparing to punch back.

Earlier this month, a pro-reform group – YES! For Idaho Education – officially formed to remind people why the reforms were necessary in the first place.

“It’s important to remember why education reform is important,” writes Hoffman in his recent column. “Idaho’s schoolchildren deserve the very best education system we can offer. They deserve a system that puts the interest of students first, which means the retention of the best teachers, the best technology and empowered, accountable school boards.”

The top-to-bottom reforms have added more choice and accountability into the state’s public education system, establishing Idaho as the national trendsetter.

“I think Idahoans don’t fully appreciate how, on a national level, we really are leading the nation in respect to these education reform movements,” Ken Burgess, who will manage the YES! campaign, told the IdahoReporter.com.

Hoffman sees the upcoming repeal battle as a replay of the unions’ ill-fated Wisconsin recall election.

“The failed multimillion dollar campaign to boot Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office is on its way to Idaho,” he warns in a recent news column. “We don’t know what form it will take, but you can imagine that some of the messages tried in Wisconsin will also be attempted here ….”

The stakes surrounding the repeal attempt were raised with the recent announcement that Luna is a member of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s education policy advisory group.

When Romney unveiled his plan for improving the nation’s public education system on May 23, Luna said many of the proposals resembled Idaho’s “Students Come First” reforms, reports IdahoPress.com.

“Governor Romney’s vision is in line with Students Come First, the education reform efforts currently being implemented across Idaho,” reads a recent Idaho GOP press release.

While the upcoming fight might be a replay of Wisconsin’s recall campaign, it might also be a preview of a messy national fight between reformers and the teacher unions, should Romney win the White House.

Otter, Luna have become ‘folk heroes’

The teacher unions have reacted to the “Students Come First” laws the way Superman responds to kryptonite, and it’s easy to understand why.

The new education laws, which read like a reformer’s wish list, incorporate the use of online learning into classrooms; base teacher bonuses on performance; curtail teachers’ collective bargaining privileges; eliminate tenure and seniority job protections; tie teacher evaluations to student learning; increase professional development opportunities; and allow students to earn college credits while in high school.

Burgess says Idaho’s cutting-edge reforms are setting the tone for like-minded lawmakers in states throughout the nation.

“When Idaho implemented these laws, what I have found is that on a national level, school reformers, states, governors and school superintendents who are hoping to accomplish some sort of school reform have looked to Idaho as a national leader,” Burgess recently told IdahoReporter.com.

He adds that Otter and Luna “are practically folk heroes.”

The repeal group has resorted to the tired union arguments that the reforms are an attempt to enrich “education entrepreneurs” through the privatization of public education.

Hoffman sees it differently.

“This is about improving public education so students have the best possible educational outcomes,” he says. “This isn’t about anything but that.”