Posted on: Wednesday, August 11, 2004

VOLCANIC ASH

By David Shapiro

When the Legislature passed new laws this year to "reinvent" Hawai'i public education by giving principals and parents more power over school spending, lawmakers promised accountability for results.

Rep. Roy Takumi, chairman of the House Education Committee, said schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto would be held responsible for passing power from the central bureaucracy to the schools to improve student achievement.

"I'd like to see the extent to which she can pull this off," Takumi said in an interview during the legislative session. "If she can't, she's going to retire, voluntary or involuntary."

Takumi added, "Whenever you are at that level of position, you've got to produce. The results are going to speak for themselves."

These promises of accountability now ring hollow following the Board of Education's sudden and astounding decision to give Hamamoto an early four-year extension of her $150,000-a-year contract.

Hamamoto has been handed unprecedented job security before she has seriously begun to implement the changes ordered by the Legislature, much less produced results.

There was absolutely no compelling public interest in extending her contract before it came up for normal review next year.

To the contrary, with seven of the 13 school board members up for re-election, Hamamoto's future would have more appropriately been decided by the next school board in line with any policy changes new members may wish to make.

Several incumbent members of the school board are being challenged by reform-minded opponents in the November election.

Board of Education Chairman Breene Harimoto called Hama-moto's contract extension a vote for continuity.

But it is more reasonably read as an arrogant attempt by current board members to tie the hands of the next school board — to extend their own views and policies through the new term whether they are re-elected or not.

And it smacks ominously of a political reward to Hamamoto for throwing her weight behind Democratic legislators and incumbent school board members against Gov. Linda Lingle's efforts to break up the statewide school system.

Hamamoto has shown solid leadership abilities in holding the Department of Education together and dealing with strict federal mandates after the chaotic resignation of Paul LeMahieu.

But that isn't the point. She's made little progress in improving student achievement and still presides over one of the most underperforming school systems in the country.

This was hardly the time to hand her such a lucrative contract extension with little advance notice or opportunity for public comment.

The new school board should have at least had a chance for a dialogue with Hamamoto to make sure they're on the same page in terms of how to lead Hawai'i schools into the future.

Current board members have stripped the next board of any real leverage over the superintendent. Hamamoto's bulletproof contract guarantees her job — or at least $600,000 in salary — whether she cooperates with the new board or not.

You'd think the school board would have learned something from the bitter dispute between University of Hawai'i regents and President Evan Dobelle, which showed what can happen when a policy board wants to change direction and a chief executive with a long-term contract resists.

The extension of Hamamoto's contract amounts to a brazen attempt by the current school board to deny citizens any real opportunity to vote for change in November — to bind us to the status quo in advance of the election.

It would be an entirely reasonable response for voters to consider a heave-ho for incumbent board members responsible for this blatant power play.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail atdave@volcanicash.net.