AFTER DEADLINE
Candidate focus must be education, readers agree

By David Polhemus
Advertiser Editorial Writer

It seems to take about 20 years for important Hawai'i issues to really shift, suggests Mitsue Cook, citing as examples the return of Kaho'olawe and the restoration of Wai'ahole Ditch water to Windward streams.

Both results seemed unlikely years ago, when such prospects would have been radical.

"No one thought we'd ever get to the point where the military would stop bombing Kaho'olawe," said Cook, a free-lance writer, researcher and college teacher serving as a community member on The Advertiser's editorial board.

"No one thought the water issue would ever be resolved against the interest of the big land-holding interests."

Could the same thing happen with education, the latest readers' group to meet with Advertiser editors wondered. Is this the year when something once thought impossible, true reform of education, might be possible? There's a connection between these three issues, Cook observed: stewardship of the 'aina, of the water — and of our youth.

After a short break, The Advertiser has resumed — with a few adjustments — its practice of inviting readers to join our editorial board, the group that defines this newspaper's stands on issues.

Since last year, we've bumped the number of community members on each board up to five (to make the unavoidable absences less costly to continuity) and, in order to let ideas develop more fully, increased the rotation period from one month to two.

An additional experiment the most recent time involved inviting five community members with similar interests and backgrounds instead of a diverse mix. This time, all five had strong credentials in the field of education and, for the most part, that crucial field is where our discussions centered.

The other members:

• Jan Huston, Ph.D. A writer, computer consultant, university lecturer and founder of an Internet company.
• Vincent Pollard, Ph.D. A lecturer at the University of Hawai'i who used to work on a Ford Motor Co. assembly line.
• Joshua Reppun, social studies teacher at La Pietra and a grad student at UH.
• Charlene Hosokawa, high school teacher of at-risk students and students with English as a second language.

From the beginning, we saw agreement that the Hawai'i public education system is in many ways broken. (The best way to tell when the system is fixed, it was suggested, is when the public schools become as good as Hawai'i's private schools, which would then make the issue moot.)

All five members hoped that The Advertiser might find a way to play a leading role in effecting the system's repair. And toward this end, members talked about ways the newspaper could push candidates for governor to come forward with a viable education plan. (The community members did their homework: So far, they said, none of the candidates seems to be getting enough qualified education advice. They're either offering "same old, same old" agendas or radical restructuring plans with no road map to get there.)

These community board members were adamant that candidates, from top to bottom, focus their attention on our public school system and how it can be improved. And they want specifics. We agree. Education and school improvement must be priorities in this campaign and certainly will be a priority for The Advertiser as our campaign coverage and endorsement process unfolds.