After Deadline
Community members help newspaper list its priorities
By John Simonds
Advertiser Reader Representative
How to measure success in education, set leadership standards for 2002 candidates and track the progress of school repairs were missions high on the work order of community members of The Advertiser editorial board during their November meetings.
Guest members for the recent sessions included Dwight Kealoha, a retired Air Force brigadier general now with Kamehameha Schools; Mitch D'Olier, president and CEO of Victoria Ward Ltd.; Iris M. Gonzalez, operations research analyst at Hickam Air Force Base; and Dave Reed, director of customer programs for The Advertiser.
Education continued as the main topic, though this series of Wednesday discussions also dealt with leadership issues, the newspaper's role in setting the public agenda, airline service, airport security, the Jones Act, the Legislature, Hawai'i's economic future and Guam as a prison site for Afghan captives and suspected terrorists.
Taking a more businesslike approach to public education and government struck a common chord among visiting members. It included finding effective ways to measure achievements among students and teachers, building on the strengths of charter schools and other best-practice models, pursuing a Marshall Plan for Hawai'i public education, setting goals for the Legislature, finding out if the $60 million available for school repairs has been put to work yet.
Friday's editorial urging the governor to ignite faster action by state agencies responsible for improving public school conditions resulted from discussions among board members about whether the state had any early results to show for its investment.
Panelists also suggested The Advertiser prepare for the 2002 election campaigns by serving its readers as consumers, helping to define their choices in terms of candidate abilities to handle issues facing Hawai'i. With the help of experts, visiting board members said, The Advertiser could devise job descriptions detailing qualifications for governor and mayor. A kindred idea was to survey past officials from Hawai'i and other states on what skills and traits make successful government leaders.
Other ways to serve readers include identifying issues the 2002 Legislature should address. Board members and guests agreed Hawai'i should devise more effective ways to gauge results and enforce accountability, in classrooms and in the work of government agencies, namely the Department of Education and the Department of Accounting and General Services, in upgrading school conditions.
Practical steps for carrying out community goals and concepts — diversifying, attracting technology, cultivating global business, changing work environments, building leadership in education— too often are missing from the big plans and vision statements, members agreed. Filling in the blanks with how-to instructions is essential to pursuing Hawai'i's quest for improvement and new direction.
Visiting members talked of a struggle between process and product in the work of the Legislature, the need to provide more common ground for business and government, of the challenge of meeting both the short- and long-term needs of public schools, how to guide change within established institutions, making Hawai'i more receptive to ideas of newcomers, examples of hopeful leadership at the University of Hawai'i versus further frustration among those seeking public school leadership, whether hiring people at big salaries and putting them in charge of schools really works.
Hiring security guards on the basis of lowest bids is not good business, members said. It's also better to invest now in early childhood education, as states increasingly are doing, rather than spend far more later on prisons to repair the damage.
The Jones Act, requiring ships serving between American ports to be U.S.- made vessels, parallels the cabotage situation within the airline industry that could be jeopardized if the Jones Act were repealed. Hawai'i needs airline service that is profitable, safe and dependable, members agreed, and a return to regulation may be in the works.
Another group of community board members will begin its tour with The Advertiser editorial board on Wednesday.
Growing interest
More than 100 readers responded to Monday's story about a Waipahu man who has developed a fermented fertilizer called "bokashi" that makes plants grow faster and in greater numbers. When Rod Ohira came back to the office Monday afternoon from an all-day assignment, he had 38 phone messages and numerous e-mails from people wanting to know where they could buy bokashi.
"I've never had that many phone calls for any story," Ohira said, "and I called every one of them back." The article was about the late-career success of an injured military retiree rather than a promotion of the product, said Ohira, but calls and e-mails continued all week from readers wanting to know how to reach entrepreneur Henry I. Arakaki to buy his soil-builder. It'll be available in 5-pound bags at retail outlets in January.
Reach John Simonds at jsimonds@honoluluadvertiser.com, or at 525-8033.
