ISLAND VOICES
Give us educational control

By John Loveland
John Loveland is an educator who lives in Honolulu.

Put control of the system where it belongs — in our hands.

One year ago January, I came to Hawai'i to serve as an administrator in a private school. Previously, I taught English in a public high school in Indiana, had been a member of the teacher's union, coached football, weightlifting and softball, and served four years as a local school board member. I expected to find a system somewhat similar where local people are empowered to govern their own schools.

Instead, I encountered a top-heavy, inefficient and unaccountable single statewide system that takes the power of school governance and decision-making away from local parents, teachers and citizens and gives it to faceless bureaucrats who are compelled to issue edicts from above.

Indiana has over 100 small, independent, local school districts, each headed by a locally elected school board. Local elections are close and hard-fought with a margin of victory often coming down to a single vote or two. Candidates campaign door-to-door, at every ice cream social and bean dinner, at Little League baseball games and soccer matches. My landslide victory of 100-plus votes meant getting the votes of seven or eight extended families.

Voters who believe they have no power to affect a presidential election know that they control the local school board elections and turn out in record numbers. Many of my major supporters were teachers and administrators who have a huge say in who runs their schools.

Board meetings are often standing-room-only because the citizens have direct input into who will be the next band director or if the principal should be fired. People call us at night, talk to us at the grocery, or collar us at church to tell us the new sign at the football field cost too much, that their son doesn't get enough playing time in basketball, that we don't need to waste money building a new school — and what am I personally going to do about those low test scores?

When local citizens disagree with the state, we had better listen to the people who elected us, for though we are ultimately accountable to the state since it holds the purse strings to the general fund, voters will kick us out of office in a heartbeat if we decide against their wishes. There is always an uncomfortable but healthy tension.

State and local agendas that often do not agree have to be balanced, and weighed on the scale of re-election. But then, comfort should not come easily to those governing. Local citizens should be able to hold the feet of elected officials to the fire.

Though we often found questions, complaints and demands difficult and hard, a local voice is the backbone of democracy, and a system of checks and balances is the heart of a republic. Good governing and good education do not come without effort; and they do not come without local input.

In Hawai'i, the alliance of only one school board, only one superintendent, the DOE, the DOH, UH and the attorney general's office all working together form an impenetrable shield of control and power that stands between the people and their schools. They need to know that schools exist for the people; students and parents do not exist for the schools. Elected officials learn this the hard way, and those bureaucrats entrenched in power have no desire or need to acknowledge it.

Though I am just getting to know the Hawai'i system of education, it seems clear that many of the problems could be fixed by taking the power out of the hands of an unaccountable, distant officialdom and giving it to friends and neighbors, moms and dads, parents and families. People now seem to feel discouraged and powerless to affect their schools due to the distance between the people and the governing authority. This is not democracy.

I am a lifelong Democrat, but on this issue, Gov. Linda Lingle has got it right. Break up the DOE into local school boards. Empower the people. Empower the local teachers by backing them with local support. Make local administrators accountable for our money and our children.

Put education and control where it belongs — in the hands of the community, the hands of the voters, your hands and mine.