House defers to Senate on school board bill
By B.J. Reyes
Associated Press
House conferees yesterday agreed to adopt a Senate proposal to abolish the state Board of Education in favor of seven elected district boards, but a key senator said he's unsure if the measure continues to have support among his own colleagues.
The bill calls for a constitutional amendment that would go on the general election ballot in November for voters to decide.
Senate conference committee co-chairman Norman Sakamoto said many senators had agreed to pass the measure along to conference committee as a way of keeping alive the debate on education reform.
"As our Senate position moved forward ... they were telling me, 'We're not 100 percent behind this, but (favor it) for the sake of keeping the discussion going (and) hoping to have improvements in the measure as it moves forward," said Sakamoto, the Senate's education chairman.
"At this point, there's not a comfort level among the senators to say, 'Oh, good, they accepted the Senate position, let's do that.'
"I need to go back with members of the Senate to see where they're at now," Sakamoto said.
The conference committee faces a deadline today for when proposed constitutional amendments must be passed out of committee.
Sakamoto, D-16th (Moanalua, Salt Lake), said Tuesday he wasn't confident the committee would meet that deadline, and instead suggested creating a
task force to examine the school board proposal and other education reform measures and make recommendations to next year's Legislature.
In addition to setting up the seven school districts, the Senate proposal also would establish a statewide school board composed of representatives from each district.
The House reform measure calls for the governor to appoint a state superintendent to establish statewide educational policy that would be implemented by 15 locally elected district boards with no statewide board.
House conference committee co-chairman Ken Ito, D-48th (Kane'ohe), had noted that the House proposal was the result of bipartisan cooperation and his colleagues want the issue put to voters, even if that means going with the Senate version.
"The ball is on their side now," said Ito, the House education chairman.
