By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Take care in talking about reforming Hawai'i's public school system.

Not CARE, the acronym for Gov. Lingle's hand-picked group of business people and educators that make up Citizens Achieving Reform and Education, which released a report yesterday backing up her campaign call for a decentralized school system and seven local school boards.

Be careful. Pay close attention to specifics, because this talk of change sounds so good on the surface. As with all things that come out of the State Capitol, the devil is in the details.

In broad strokes, the slogans and sound bites are certainly appealing to a public fed up with horror stories of teachers having to buy classroom supplies, kids having to share text books, parents having to raise money for a music teacher and schools not making the grade. Yeah, let's change that.

The CARE report recommends seven (at least) elected local school boards, which means each community has to find enough competent, willing people to serve.

Ask yourself, would you be willing to serve? Would you be willing to take time away from your job, your kids, your makule softball league, to swim in the mind-bending minutiae of running the schools in your area? Would you be willing to answer tough questions from your neighbors? Be quoted in the media about your views? That takes a whole lot of caring.

For that matter, would you care enough to go to local board meetings? Do you go to BOE, PTSA or SCBM meetings now?

The report also recommends a statewide standards board with audit and evaluation powers, to be appointed by the Legislature and approved by the governor.

Is that a good thing? Do we trust their judgement implicitly? Why can't voters pick the standards board? Because we haven't cared enough in the past to vote for the board of education?

We have to start caring.

The governor's education reform package is likely to be the hot topic of the upcoming legislative session.

The thing is, new ideas and best intentions won't work if we, the people of Hawai'i, don't care enough to make our public schools better.

Even now, in the entrenched bureaucratic wonderland that is the DOE, the best public schools are the ones that have the support of a caring community — active parents, generous business people, stalwart volunteers — and the leadership of a visionary principal who says yes more often than "No, no can."

Can Hawai'i public schools be truly excellent? Absolutely. But it's going to take more than politicians and committee reports and sound bites. It's going to take all of us caring enough to ask hard questions, to spend long hours and to understand specifics.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.