State schools Supt. Tom Luna is at the Senate Education Committee this afternoon, taking questions from committee members about his reform plan. Sen. Mitch Toryanski, R-Boise, said, "In my district we had a town hall meeting yesterday, and about 90 percent of the time that we had with the residents was spent on your plan." Among their questions, Toryanski said: Why give laptop computers to every 9th grader? Why not give them to seniors, "students who are more mature," and start with a certain number of schools rather than all of them?

Luna responded, "Understand that if we were not to do the laptop program, then we do not make the adjustments to student-teacher ratios. It would be a wash. It's by having the laptops we can have students take two online credits per year, and the money that saves us pays for the laptops and the maintenance on the laptops. ... It self-funds." Luna said it wouldn't save any money to buy the computers for an older group of students; his plan is to buy the computers for all of next year's 9th graders, then continue to do so as the next year's class comes in, with all high-schoolers eventually getting them.

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