Splits appear on school reform

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer

Gov. Linda Lingle's education advisory committee is moving rapidly toward drafting recommendations for the governor by mid-December, but internal strains have emerged among committee members, mirroring the larger public debate over reform.

CARE members have little ammunition yet to explain with convincing detail their own outline regarding such proposals as local school boards and a weighted spending formula, and they have perhaps learned as much as they have taught.

What they have found is that many principals feel left out of the process, that teachers are overwhelmed and that there is a perception the campaign is too political. Educators and business leaders also are demanding much more detail, and key members of CARE are warning Lingle that these concerns must be dealt with for reform to have a chance next year.

The business community, in particular, is reluctant to get behind Lingle's effort if it is seen as partisan. At a meeting between the governor and her committee Tuesday, Mike O'Neill, the CEO of Bank of Hawaii, told the governor that business leaders are wary of being "bushwhacked" by politics and said reform would not succeed unless more details are offered soon.

"At some point we have to have a detailed game plan," O'Neill said.

Many educators have also complained about a lack of detail, and Lingle and committee members have countered that they are still in the information-gathering stage and have not settled on a final plan. But the governor has indicated that she wants to split apart the state Department of Education in favor of local school districts with locally elected boards and create a new weighted spending formula that better reflects student need.

Change of this magnitude is bound to encounter resistance, and it will be up to Lingle to decide whether there is enough public appetite for reform before she risks any more of her political capital. The governor lost her first duel with Democrats over education last session and, as O'Neill counseled, a lot may hinge on who can take credit for fixing schools.

School principals, under the governor's outline, would have much more authority over school spending and curriculum, but many have told the committee they feel shut out of Lingle's planning. Principals want to hear how they would be trained for any new responsibilities and want a specific time line for reform. Several principals and teachers have been meeting privately with committee members, and about 30 influential principals met last Sunday with William Ouchi, the committee's primary consultant, at his father's Fort Ruger-area home.

"They were angry at first," said Ouchi, who grew up here and is a professor in corporate renewal at the University of California at Los Angeles. "But then they had some very specific suggestions for how this should work."

Diana Oshiro, the principal of Myron B. Thompson Academy, a charter school, and a former DOE administrator who serves on CARE, said many principals are unhappy about the process while other educators are troubled that the committee has not talked enough publicly about how reform relates to student achievement. "There's a lot of venting," she told the governor and the committee, "a lot of not-so-nice things being said."

Teachers, meanwhile, are also waiting for details. Roger Takabayashi, the president of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, attended his first CARE meeting with the governor Tuesday and said that teachers support a weighted student formula. "The devil is in the details for us," he said. "We want to know what is coming down on us."

April Nakamura, a social studies teacher at McKinley High School and a CARE member, said it appears the governor and the DOE are in a race to show the public which side is more committed to reform. Teachers are being pressured by the DOE to improve student test scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law, she said, and may not have much time to focus on the governor's ideas on local school boards or a new spending formula.

"I'm overwhelmed," Nakamura told the governor and the committee. "I feel totally pressured. I know other teachers are, too."

At the end of the meeting, Lingle said that reform would have to be bipartisan or it would not succeed. She told her committee that Hawai'i was at a unique point in its history where the elements seem to be coming together to produce change in the state's public schools.

"We can do a lot better," said Lingle, who has vowed that education reform will be her top priority next year. "I don't know anybody who thinks we can't."

The public forums, which continue this week on Maui and the Big Island, are serving as a kind of road test for debates that will eventually take place in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Lawmakers, who are staking out their own ground on education reform, will determine whether to back Lingle's call for a ballot question on local school boards in November 2004.

So far, the forums have not uncovered a groundswell of support — or opposition — for local school boards or a weighted student formula. Like any exercise in democracy, the talks have occasionally been rambling and unpredictable, a chance for people to give their opinions on education or rail about shortcomings at the DOE.

Many of the people who have spoken at the forums have a direct stake in the outcome — like teachers and school administrators — and committee members acknowledge they have to find ways to reach out to more parents and the business community to help get the Legislature to put the issue on the ballot.

But the forums have been well-attended and, at times, lively and insightful, because educators understand that the changes being discussed could have a tremendous impact on schools and know this may be the only opportunity to be heard. CARE members have had to walk a delicate line between defending the governor's outline and appearing open to other viewpoints.

The main model CARE is following on decentralization has evolved since the 1970s in Edmonton, Alberta, and several U.S. school districts have tried similar, but not identical, reforms with varying results. Local school districts and school boards are the norm across the nation, but the governor and committee members have stressed they want to develop something that fits Hawai'i and not simply copy other models.

"We're equating reform with local school boards, and I don't believe these two things have to be equated," Russ Robison, a math teacher at Mililani High School, said at a forum at Mililani Waena Elementary School.

Bob Grantham, a retiree who has five grandchildren attending Enchanted Lake Elementary School in Kailua, said he strongly supports local school boards because they would be closer to the schools than the DOE or the state Board of Education. "The DOE, as far as I'm concerned, they don't have a prayer of knowing what's going on at the schools," he said.

With no clear trend in public opinion, and few specifics with which to explain their own proposals, CARE members are often only able to ask the audience to wait for more information before deciding.

At the end of a forum at Enchanted Lake, Nakamura, the McKinley social studies teacher, took over the microphone to emotionally accuse some educators of being close-minded and only interested in keeping their power.

"I know a lot of you came here with your minds made up," Nakamura said.

Sam Moore, a field representative for the HSTA, bolted for Nakamura when the forum was over. "Please don't call people names just because they don't necessarily agree with you," he said.

Afterward, Moore said it was the CARE members who had already made up their minds. "I think this was set up by the governor from the get go," he said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.