Poll finds 74% want say in DOE breakup
By Derrick DePledge and Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writers
KAPOLEI — Gov. Linda Lingle released a new statewide poll yesterday that found that 74 percent of those interviewed want the chance to vote on whether to create locally elected school boards.
The governor, speaking at an education summit at Kapolei High School called by state schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto, said Hawai'i's statewide public-school system needs systemic change to improve.
"Up until now, we have left education decisions up to the politicians and the education experts," Lingle said. "The results speak for themselves. It is long past the time to let the people weigh in on this issue."
The summit, an opportunity for educators, parents and community leaders from across the state to exchange thoughts, was centered on giving Hamamoto and the state Department of Education action plans for change.
But with education reform dominating public debate for the past few months, the subplot was political.
Lingle's education advisory committee, Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, paid The Tarrance Group, a national Republican polling firm, to conduct the poll. The firm did telephone interviews with 600 registered voters and an over-sample of 206 voters in specific districts in late January and early February, right after Lingle and Hamamoto gave separate speeches on education to the state Legislature that received extensive media coverage.
The poll found that 80 percent favor making school principals accountable for student progress and 75 percent favor allowing schools to control 90 cents of every dollar spent on public education. The poll's margin of error was 4.1 percent.
Lingle, a Republican, and Democrats in the Legislature support a new student-spending formula that bases the allocation of money on student need instead of school enrollment. Both sides also support giving principals more power over spending, with Lingle calling for principals to have 90 percent control over school operations money — not all spending, as the poll question implies — and Democrats recommending 75 percent.
Governance the difference
The main difference has been over school governance. Lingle wants to break up the DOE into seven local school districts with elected school boards and replace the state Board of Education with an appointed standards and accountability commission. Democrats want to expand existing School Community Based Management councils to every school and give the councils more say over school budgets and curriculum. Some Democrats would expand the BOE from 13 to 17 voting members so the board would better represent different geographic regions of the state, a proposal that would require a constitutional amendment.
The state House has voted twice this session against local school boards, and the state Senate has yet to hear the issue, but Lingle said she remains optimistic that lawmakers will put the question — which also requires a constitutional amendment — on the November ballot.
Several lawmakers said yesterday that they doubted the new poll would make a difference.
Senate President Robert Bunda, D-22nd (North Shore, Wahiawa), said the poll only asked whether people should have the right to vote, not whether they actually support local school boards.
"I don't think it will change anyone's mind," Bunda said.
Rep. Mark Moses, R-40th (Makakilo, Kapolei, Royal Kunia), said he believes the poll results are compelling but will likely not convince many Democrats. "I'm convinced," Moses said. "But I don't think it will convince anyone else.
"I hope it will."
At the summit, many of the 350 participants steered away from specific legislation and instead discussed a variety of options to improve schools, from increasing family involvement to building partnerships with businesses and community groups.
Clearing up questions
In small groups, and in larger sessions, people sought more clarity about what it would mean to give principals or school councils more power, and how principals and the councils would work together, questions that lawmakers have also yet to resolve.
Jessica Yamasawa, principal at Kahakai Elementary School on the Big Island, said she believes the summit will be the start of a more detailed discussion among educators and the community. "It's been so vague up until now that it's been hard to make an informed decision," she said.
Hilda Yagong, the Parent Community Networking Center facilitator at Honoka'a Elementary School on the Big Island, brought her son Jeremy, a sixth-grader, with her to the summit.
"I definitely know that there needs to be a change," Yagong said. "There's some cleaning out of the bureaucracy that needs to be done, so some of the money filters down to the students. Exactly how they'll do that, I'm not really sure, but this is what I'm here to learn."
Reinventing education
Hamamoto said much of the debate has been constrained by people who judge proposed changes by how the DOE operates today, not the way it could in the future.
The superintendent said the department is committed to a new spending formula and empowering principals, along with what Tony Wagner, a Harvard educator who gave the summit's keynote address, describes as making schools more relevant to the workforce.
"This is about how we reinvent public education," Hamamoto said. "Ultimately, we are going to do it."
Reach Derrick DePledge at depledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
