School reforms winning support but details elusive
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer
The state's House education chairman said he will ask fellow Democrats next session to support a new spending formula for Hawai'i's public schools that could shift more control over finance and curriculum from the state Department of Education to individual schools.
State Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Palisades), said he would also recommend that Democrats back a ballot question in November 2004 on how schools should be governed, possibly by expanding the state Board of Education to make it more geographically representative.
Gov. Linda Lingle has called for an identical new spending formula, and the idea is also gaining traction at the DOE and the teacher's union. But the governor believes the formula would not work unless the DOE is broken into local school districts with locally elected school boards.
A consensus — or a compromise — between Lingle and the Democrats who control the Legislature will have to happen for education reform to succeed next year, and Takumi's comments provide further indication that the debate will revolve around the value of local school boards.
With momentum building for a new spending formula, the pressure is growing on Lingle to explain to lawmakers and the education community precisely how local school boards are necessary to achieve change. Already, state schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto and Roger Takabayashi, the president of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, have said they oppose local school boards, and Takumi said he is skeptical.
"The community has to be convinced that it will improve student performance," Takumi said. "The argument isn't compelling yet."
Critical details of the new spending formula are still being worked out, but the concept would likely follow a model developed in Edmonton, Alberta, over the past three decades. Each student would likely be assigned a specific dollar amount, with more money going to low-income, special-education and students still learning English. The money would then follow the student to school — potentially to the school of their parent's choice — so the budget process would be more transparent.
Principals would have more discretion over how to spend the money to best achieve results, and would be held accountable for test scores and teacher, parent and student satisfaction.
Consultants to Lingle have said that key players — the governor, lawmakers, the DOE, principals and teachers — have to agree on reform for the spending formula to work, since it involves trust and relaxing the traditional power the state has held over schools.
Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, the governor's advisory committee, has completed a series of 10 public forums on a weighted student formula and local school boards around the state and is drafting final recommendations for the governor. Last week, the governor also released a new report that claimed that the state now spends $10,422 per student on average a year but only 49 cents of every dollar reaches schools. The DOE countered that it spent $8,375 per student last school year.
The report concluded that the DOE is too large and cumbersome to handle the transition to a new spending formula, a finding that has widened a rift between Lingle and the DOE over education policy. Meanwhile, DOE budget analysts are finishing a report for the Legislature on a weighted student formula, which will likely provide the first look at how much money each school might get and explain what the DOE considers the practical and political challenges to reform.
"I think it's going to happen," Hamamoto said of a new spending formula.
Randy Roth, the governor's top education adviser, said he was pleased with the turnout at the public forums and impressed that so many educators attended and asked questions. There was no clear trend at the forums for or against local school boards, several observers said, but there was an underlying dissatisfaction with the DOE and student test scores.
"It helped people understand that the status quo was just not acceptable," Roth said.
Democrats seem to agree.
Takumi, who cautioned that school administrators across the country are not satisfied with student performance, said he would recommend a weighted student formula and a ballot question on school governance to the House Democratic caucus after the session convenes in January. State Sen. Norman Sakamoto, D-15th (Waimalu, Airport, Salt Lake), the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has also shown interest in a weighted student formula and possibly expanding the BOE so each member would handle a few representative districts, making the state board more geographically aligned to the Islands.
Takumi said he has not ruled out local school boards, and said he is open to discussing more local control over schools. He believes, for example, that existing School Community Based Management councils would thrive under a weighted student formula because schools would have more say over finances and curriculum.
"Hopefully, this is not going to be about scoring political points," Takumi said. "I hope we just don't get so focused on governance at the expense of student performance."
Lingle, since she announced that she was creating the CARE committee in October, has mentioned education reform at virtually every public appearance, and her committee has taken her ideas directly to educators and parents at the forums. Roth said the governor's advisers and CARE members will continue to meet with small groups of principals, teachers, parents and business leaders.
Democrats have supported the concept of local school boards in the past, but they backed away after disagreements over how the boards would work. Several members of CARE have told the governor that more details are needed before educators and business leaders can back reform.
Laura H. Thielen, a BOE member who also serves on the CARE committee, said the state will not be able to truly empower schools without breaking up the DOE into smaller school districts with local boards.
"But I don't want local school boards to micromanage schools," she said. "I don't want local school boards to become political."
Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
