Island Voices
DOE/BOE should be wiped off our map
By Thomas Stuart
A math and science teacher at a Big Island public high school
I have a distinctly biased view of the state-level DOE/BOE as a result of having taught in a Leeward District school for six years.
Twenty years ago I retired after 21 years of active duty, following which I became a technical services contractor for many years. We may be thankful our military forces — indeed, the federal departments and agencies as a whole — do not perform with the same ... ah ... efficiency as our very own DOE/BOE.
The DOE/BOE is not a "system" in any sense of the term. It is a witch's brew of disconnected amorphous, often competing, webs of bureaucratic and political interests that have absolutely nothing to do with educating children, but everything to do with maintaining the political status quo at all costs. Anything that threatens that is viewed as a direct threat to careers and empires carefully constructed over decades at taxpayer expense.
The current mess should be literally disintegrated and its parts scattered, to be reintegrated at county and sub-county school district levels, close to the people.
This is a state with no, repeat no, curriculum of any sort and absolutely no, repeat no, measurable performance standards with which to assess either students or teachers. There is — right now — zero accountability.
As a teacher again now, once I close my classroom door, I can do whatever the hell I want to. As long as parents don't squawk, there is no "principal" or other outside authority who gives the slightest of damns what I do, what I teach, whether I teach or how well I teach.
Voter and parent apathy is the grease that keeps the wheels of this Rube Goldberg jalopy turning with so little apparent effort and with such dismal results year after year after year.
That we have any dedicated teachers left who will — after decades of being grievously underpaid — try, day in day out, to do their very best for their students is nothing short of miraculous. They teach not because of the "system" but in spite of it.
Many, many teachers see their net worth in monotonic decline year after year. Is it any wonder that a critical mass of teacher talent is evaporating in this state?
We need more voices clamoring for local control. The state simply cannot cope. Counties do most of the heavy lifting anyway and, for the most part, do it very well.
