Posted on: Wednesday, October 2, 2002

EDITORIAL
HSTA endorsement stance ups ante on school debate

While the Hawai'i State Teachers Association has announced it is unlikely to endorse anyone for governor this year, that doesn't mean the state's thousands of teachers and their families will not vote.

Where that vote will now go depends — more than most years — on the specifics of the candidates' stands on schools, public education and the role of teachers.

That is, absent a guiding endorsement from their union, teachers and those who support teachers will have to grapple with the specifics of the education platform put out by the candidates.

Thus, more than ever, it is imperative that the candidates talk about more than their commitment to education, their belief in the teachers and their support for our schools. They need to convert those phrases into specifics:

• Are they willing to give more money to our schools in the form of higher teacher salaries or more classroom support? If so, where, specifically, will the money come from?

• If our current system of governance is holding our schools back, what would they replace it with and what would the change accomplish other than creating a new chain of command?

• How will the candidates react, as governor, to the imperatives of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which could radically change the way our school system operates?

This is the kind of questions teachers — and wise voters — will be asking as the campaign unfolds. An endorsement by the teachers' union might have tended to short-circuit such discussions.