Posted on: Wednesday, July 28, 2004

VOLCANIC ASH

By David Shapiro

With seven of the 13 Board of Education seats up for grabs this year and three incumbents not seeking re-election, school reformers are going after the board for a shakeup they think is long overdue.

The big question is whether they can persuade voters who profess great concern for the quality of public education to prove it by better educating themselves on school board elections they've given scant attention in the past.

These races have traditionally been decided by name recognition and union endorsements more than issues and qualifications of candidates.

The Board of Education will compete for ballot attention this year with hotly contested races for president, Honolulu mayor, both Hawai'i congressional seats and control of the Legislature.

Reform advocates intent on a major overhaul of the struggling school system see these elections as their chance to change the system from within after setbacks in the Legislature this year.

Lawmakers backed the status quo with measures that didn't alter the balance of power in the schools and refused to let voters decide on Gov. Linda Lingle's proposal to break up the statewide school system into local boards.

Lingle's supporters have fielded candidates in most districts who are committed to her views. There's also an array of smart, independent candidates who want change in the schools but aren't wedded to any specific reform philosophy.

The new formulas for school budgeting and administration ordered by the Legislature give more responsibility to a school board that critics say has proved woefully ineffective at handling the power it already has.

They charge that if the Board of Education hadn't let schools drift for more than a decade, the Legislature's move to dictate how schools are run and money is spent wouldn't have been necessary.

The board will have to answer to criticism that it seemed a monument to irrelevance as it stood mostly on the fringes while the governor and Legislature battled over the future of public schools.

Members spent much of that time debating whether surfing should be a school sport — and took forever to come to a decision on even that.

The board made its biggest news during the legislative session when Chairman Breene Harimoto led six other members in an unbecoming public ambush of fellow member Laura Thielen for supporting Lingle's proposal to break up the statewide school system.

Harimoto praised his colleagues for their "courage" in the seven-on-one attack, which would have looked more like spineless bullying in the schoolyards under his charge.

When Thielen proposed a one-on-one public airing of their differences, Harimoto wasn't interested in taking her on without his posse to back him up.

The politics got so petty that Harimoto said board members wouldn't use the word "reform" to describe efforts to improve public schools because it was the governor's word.

In the elections, reformers will have to battle school administrators and unions representing teachers, principals and other school employees who like the status quo just fine and will fight hard to preserve it.

They usually prevail because nobody else is paying attention to the school board races. Changing that will be the main challenge facing reform advocates.

Voters on all sides of the issue have a right to expect the news media to do a better job of informing the electorate where candidates stand and what their qualifications are.

Brief summaries in pre-election guides offering only sketchy information won't pass muster this year.

If we expect our schools to do better, so must we all — voters and media alike.

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