BOE rebuts school reform 'lies'
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer
WAIMANALO — State schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto and several members of the Board of Education fired back yesterday at what they described as a deliberate campaign of misinformation by Gov. Linda Lingle and her supporters on education reform.
"I'm not only frustrated, but I'm also very disappointed and to some degree angry that people continue to misrepresent the facts," Hamamoto said in an interview.
THIELEN
Several board members, at a meeting at Waimanalo Elementary and Intermediate School, were even more blunt, accusing the governor's allies of distortion.
Tension on the school board has been growing for several months, since board member Laura H. Thielen emerged as a central figure in promoting Lingle's reform agenda.
The governor has proposed splitting the state Department of Education into seven local districts with elected boards and replacing the BOE with a statewide standards and accountability commission.
With their future role at stake, many board members have been publicly critical of the governor's plans, but had not engaged in open confrontation until yesterday. The coordinated strike marked a serious escalation in the war of words on reform and could further undermine relations between the DOE and the Lingle administration.
Mary Cochran, a board member from Maui, said she's tired of being trashed by the governor's supporters.
"I'm going to call it what it is: lies," Cochran said.
Lingle's office declined to comment.
In an extraordinary rebuke of a fellow member, BOE Chairman Breene Harimoto said he believed Thielen has violated the board's code of conduct by leading the charge for local school boards while identifying herself as a board member.
"I believe that's a total conflict of interest," an emotional Harimoto said. "We cannot allow this to happen. We have to put our foot down."
In all, seven out of the board's 14 members publicly criticized Thielen, who serves on the governor's education advisory committee. Several members said they had been holding back their comments but felt that it was time to speak out.
"Enough is enough, especially when it's just half-lies," board member Denise Matsumoto said.
Thielen said she has made it clear that she is not representing the entire board when she speaks about reform. She defended her advocacy as free speech and complained that she has been subject to increasingly vicious attacks from fellow board members.
"This is not a personal attack on anyone," Thielen said of her support for reform.
But Thielen apologized if she left any impression during a recent interview on KSSK's "Perry & Price" radio show that she blames Hamamoto for the DOE's problems, and explained that she was flustered by a question.
Yesterday, Hamamoto released to the board her annual report on school performance, which contradicted claims by the governor that the DOE is too top heavy and bureaucratic and is in the top third nationally in per-pupil spending.
Thomas Gans, a retired DOE specialist who prepared the report, said just 2.1 percent of DOE professional staff were doing district administrative functions in the 2000-2001 school year, compared with the national average of 3.9 percent.
Gans also said that Hawai'i was 33rd — and below the national average — in per-pupil spending in the 2001-2002 school year, and was at the bottom among states in the proportion of state and local spending devoted to education in the 1998-1999 school year, the latest years for which comparable statistics were available.
The superintendent's report found that more than half of Hawai'i's public school students were poor, still learning English, or had physical or mental disabilities last school year, a difficult and costly challenge for educators as they attempt to meet higher expectations.
The report found that 34 percent of students received free or reduced lunches — the DOE's measure of poverty — about 4 percent required special education, and 1.5 percent spoke limited English. About 11 percent of students had multiple disadvantages.
Over the past decade, according to the report, the number of students in poverty has increased more than 48 percent, the number receiving special education has jumped by 80 percent, and the number who speak limited English has increased almost 40 percent.
The report notes that overall school enrollment peaked in the 1997-1998 school year, but that enrollment has surged on Leeward O'ahu and on Maui in response to population growth.
Over the past decade, enrollment has grown by 21.6 percent in the Leeward district and by 14 percent on Maui.
Statewide, the estimated high-school dropout rate ranges between 13 percent and 18 percent, well above the state's goal of no more than 10 percent.
Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
