EDITORIAL
No time to give up on education reform

Over at the State Capitol, the issue of education is in a fascinating state of flux just now, forming the sort of primordial ooze out of which something really splendid could emerge.

Or it might just turn to mud.

Given normal levels of partisanship and dogmatic close-mindedness, we shouldn't be surprised if Hawai'i's politicians let what may be a rare opportunity pass them by.

The stakes, however, are much too great to permit such prideful pettiness.

Republicans at the moment insist that progress depends on the centerpiece of their reform package — a proposal to split the state Department of Education into local school districts with elected boards.

That idea has all but died in the state House. Republicans are pursuing what appears to be the forlorn hope that it can be revived in the Senate.

We're not sure that Republicans are listening carefully to the bubbling stew of new and not-so-new ideas that the Democrats are stirring.

Beginning with the premise that any change should be linked to student achievement, they are refining a bill that would lower class sizes in the early grades, require new school councils to formulate three-year plans for academic improvement and put principals on three-year, performance-based contracts.

We see seeds in this bill from a number of sources:

• Empowerment of principals to act as school "CEOs," an idea we've advocated.
• Revival of SCBMs (School/Community-Based Management councils) to form what schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto called a board of directors for each school.
• The weighted school spending formula proposed by Lingle.

We hear a great deal of preliminary naysaying. Some principals worry that the new SCBMs would form an unwanted new layer of oversight, while others fear that SCBMs would continue to be marginalized by principals who largely ignore them.

House Education Chairman Roy Takumi says empowerment of SCBMs will come when they start "playing with other people's money" — that is, the new councils would influence a school's budget and curriculum, as schools gain greater control over those decisions under the new spending formula.

The Democrats "just don't believe in decentralization," said Randy Roth, Lingle's education policy adviser.

Yet if small districts are the answer, why stop at breaking Hawai'i into seven smaller districts — still very large at 20,000 or 30,000 students each? Democrats are talking about effectively creating 283 districts — one for each school.

As members of both parties return bubbling with enthusiasm from a trip to a reformed school district that many find inspirational — Edmonton, Alberta — we suggest that they open their minds and their eyes to the ideas already on the table that all can agree on.

It's not too late to bring meaningful change to Hawai'i's public schools this year.