EDITORIAL
Hamamoto sets course for real progress

For someone who has spent virtually her entire working life in the Hawai'i public school system, Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto had some strikingly tough things to say yesterday about that system.

Hawai'i's public school system, Hamamoto said, in an unusual address to a joint session of the Legislature, is "obsolete" and dysfunctional. It has, she admitted, failed to meet the needs of the young people entrusted into its care.

Those are words usually heard from the school system's harshest critics. To hear them from someone who symbolizes what the Department of Education has been, and is, was nothing less than stunning.

But Hamamoto did not come simply to catalogue the system's faults. She offered a comprehensive and straightforward outline of what she thinks is needed to turn the system around.

Public relations struggle

Hamamoto's appearance was clearly an effort by majority Democrats to even out the public relations struggle with Republican Gov. Linda Lingle over education reform. Some Republicans complained that the superintendent's speech was an end-run around the process. That may be so, but one would have to acknowledge it was fairly successful.

It didn't go unnoticed that Hamamoto delivered her remarks against a backdrop of dignitaries that included previous Democratic governors of Hawai'i, all nodding somberly in agreement with her remarks.

But beyond style and theatrics, there was substance in Hamamoto's speech that calls for careful consideration.

One of her most powerful moments amounted to a rebuke of legislators, administrators and others who seek to control the education system.

'Don't tie our hands'

She urged lawmakers to give her the tools and space needed to run our school system and then, effectively, get out of the way. "Hold me accountable and expect results," she declared. "Don't tie our hands!"

Today, Hamamoto said, the "system" that dominates public education works against the best efforts of educators, not for them. She urged lawmakers to unshackle the DOE from the oversight of state construction, contracting and personnel departments.

That's a sound idea, if it means freeing educators to educate. But if it implies a shadow bureaucracy within the DOE that simply replicates what can be found elsewhere, then caution is in order.

Throughout Hamamoto's speech, there was a theme that we most heartily endorse: Any "reform" should be designed first and foremost to improve the interaction that takes place between an individual teacher and an individual student.

In specific areas, Hamamoto threw out several common-sense challenges to anyone involved in public education, including:

• A commitment that every child, by the end of grade three, will be able to read.
  
  
• Pushing more parental involvement by, in part, creating a grading and report card system that is "user friendly" and engaging.
  
  
• Overhauling the School/Community-Based Management Councils into empowered boards of directors so they work as they were originally intended. To give the councils real meaning, they must have substantial authority over spending and achievement expectations at individual schools, she said.
  
  
• Placing principals on a performance-based contract, with substantial rewards for those who make the grade.
  
  
• Putting principals on a full 12-month schedule, as with other management executives. Teachers should be put on an 11-month schedule — 10 months of teaching and one month of paid training.
  
  The devil in this expansion of schedules is that it will cost considerable money. A modest proposal by former Gov. Ben Cayetano to extend the school year by a week or so almost failed when the full costs were tallied.

Creating a common public school calendar that would offer a year-round school year with more frequent breaks and vacation time.

While this is long overdue, it would pose difficult logistical problems, including dealing with families, employees and others who have structured their lives around the current calendar.

Hamamoto went out of her way to point to those areas where she, the Lingle administration and the Legislature appear to be in at least general agreement.

But she also made it clear she disagrees with Lingle's plan to break up the statewide school board into seven smaller elected boards.

That suggests a sensible course of action. The Legislature, the administration and the DOE (including the Board of Education) should sit down right now and flesh out the details of those areas where there is general agreement. This is a tremendous opportunity for real progress.

Once that work has been done, then they can turn to the more contentious issue of governance.