The “Luna Laws” have been repealed. This is no time for self-congratulation, but time to begin the real work. It is time for thinking and talking about changes that will really make a difference, except that this time teachers need to be involved, both individually and as represented by their union and their subject-matter associations; they need to assume leading roles in the process. Administrators, both building and district, board members, parents, and other interested parties – there need to be diverse people in the meetings and at the table or tables. The whole community needs to be involved, all the stakeholders, even the politicians.
Part of the problem with the “Luna Laws” is that they are complex. Each one bundles together a number of different provisions. Each element deserves to be discussed and debated on its own merits. This sounds like it will involve a lot of talk, and it will, but I can think of no better way to end up with substantive and lasting improvements that all parties can live with.
Superintendent Luna, when he broke his six day silence after the election, seemed to think that time is of the essence, that some revised version of the bills be referred back to the Legislature to be re-passed. He seemed to dismiss talk as being delay, as “kicking the can down the road.” Governor Otter seems to think that the propositions can be repackaged and passed again in altered form, old wine in new bottles. Nothing could be farther than that from the way we need to go. It needs to be gotten out of the hands of politicians who know little of the workings of schools, except what they learn from ALEC or some other think-tank.
It is time for us to be pro-active and downright pushy about getting authentic dialogue going. We must be vocal and pushy and assume a leading role, not wait passively for the Reformists to accord us a leading role, for that will never happen. It is educators, particularly teachers on the ground, not Politicians, aloof in their lofty halls of power, who have the clearest close-up visions of what works and what doesn’t, of how kids learn, of the practical implications, positive and negative, of change.