ISLAND VOICES
War not yet won to better schools

Charles Fulks is a counselor at Kaua'i High School.

During these trying times of war abroad, we sometimes forget that we, most of Hawai'i's public, are fighting a war at home. This battle we continually wage is to improve the quality of public education. And make no mistake, it is a war.

Although the education budget could be reorganized so that we would not need to raise taxes, the truth is that citizens feel so strongly about improving education, according to recent polls, that they are willing to do what it takes to improve our schools, including a tax increase. However, our governor does not feel the same.

During former Gov. Ben Cayetano's eight-year reign, he did nothing to improve the quality of education, and it appears that Gov. Linda Lingle will do no better. The ironic fact is that when you visit Lingle's Web site (www.hawaii.gov/gov), one of her top three missions is to "improve public education."

Finding a cure for our ailing educational system does not require us to hire a panel of our nation's leading scientists. Common sense tells us we need a few policy changes. We need an integrated curriculum to flow and carry students through all of the grade levels. We need to eliminate costly programs like adult education and move it to our community college system. Most of all, we need bright college students to consider teaching as a profession and we need to pay them well enough to stay in the business of educating our youth.

We shouldn't further degrade teachers with a contract proposal that cuts their pay. Lingle's present proposal offers 0 percent "raises" for two years, increased healthcare costs of about $1,400 per year and a host of other take-aways that make it ever harder to teach.

A licensed teacher with 12 years' teaching experience in Hawai'i earns $36,486 annually. If Lingle has her way, in two years this teacher will still be earning the same. Knowing this, how can the state hope to attract and retain dedicated, intelligent educators? The answer is it cannot. Hawai'i teachers know this, our parents know this and certainly Lingle knows this to be true.