By David Shapiro

As Gov. Linda Lingle and Democratic lawmakers draw battle lines for a fight over public school reform in this year's Legislature, a major change they seem to agree on is giving principals more independent authority to run their schools according to local needs.

The rub is that one group isn't exactly jumping up and down with excitement over the idea — the public school principals.

Unless principals get on board with enthusiasm, and show more taste for leadership and risk-taking than they have to this point, any school improvement program whose success rests in their hands likely will sputter.

Principals have been mostly silent as Lingle's committee, Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, has proposed giving them far more control over budgets and curriculum at their schools — and holding them far more accountable for student performance.

Randy Perreira, deputy executive director of the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, which represents the principals, said last month that the union and principals have no position on proposed reforms at this point.

He indicated principals have concerns about their level of accountability, standards for student achievement and adequate state funding of school reforms.

You can't blame the principals for wanting assurances that if they're to be held more accountable, they'll receive appropriate compensation, training and resources to do the job.

But it's worrisome that those who are supposed to lead our schools to greater achievement are, through their reticence, showing little leadership in shaping the debate.

They're sitting back and covering their own 'okoles, typical of the defensive posture that has led the Department of Education to mediocrity.

You can't force somebody to lead if they don't want to. At some point, principals must show the courage to step up, take the ball and run with it.

If they lack confidence that we can fix our schools under their guidance, we have to be concerned that we're putting the ball in the wrong hands.

School reforms built around principals would certainly be made worth their while. Proposals to increase their responsibility for student performance include pay raises.

But principals would be expected to accept more accountability for results and give up some of the union protections that shield them from consequences when their schools fail to perform up to potential.

If a school is failing, the school board or other governing authority needs to be able to take it up directly with the principal, not with his or her union representative. Virtually nowhere else are managers at this high a level given such extensive union protection.

Lingle's committee would give the principals pay increases, performance-based three-year contracts and the right to return to teaching positions if they're dismissed as principals for poor performance. That's better protection than most managers in the private sector get.

But principals have always prized their security above all else and have resisted challenges to their union coverage.

When Lingle last year proposed legislation to remove principals from the union, the HGEA and compliant Democratic lawmakers killed it early in the session.

HGEA executive director Russell Okata said then that denying principals the security of the union would "destroy their own weakening morale" and make it difficult to recruit new principals.

Well, poor babies. Who wants to recruit more principals consumed with playing it safe and avoiding risks? How will our schools ever find the innovation to improve that way?

If we're going to center hopes for our children on school principals, it's about time they get in the game and show us what they're made of.

David Shapiro can be reached at dave@volcanicash.net.