COMMENTARY
Rigorous curriculum is essential
By David H. Rolf
David H. Rolf was a member of the 1999 Governor's Education Task Force and a member of the 1998 National Education Goals Panel Future of the Goals Task Force.
Hawai'i cannot reform its education system without a curriculum.
The problem with the re-invention proposals coming from the Legislature is that they provide no comfort level whatsoever that such a curriculum will ever be installed.
Consequently, our students continue to be tested on course material that has not been taught to them.
And the students are not getting the answers right.
Hawai'i math performance scores show that only 19 percent of students are proficient. That low level of performance has remained flat during the first two years of the Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards testing and will continue to remain flat as long as our schools lack an academic curriculum.
Without curricula, the dinosaur subject area is often taught in second grade, third grade and fourth grade. Teachers just shrug and say, "Kids like their dinosaurs."
It is no wonder that students fail to answer questions on the performance test; rigorous course material is simply not taught.
Some say that if you push enough money down to the school level, principals, who will soon be in control of their budgets under the Legislature's plan, will find the $265,000 needed to buy the Direct Instruction reading mastery curriculum and its accompanying textbooks and tests.
"DI" has proven successful at Solomon Elementary and Kauluwela Elementary, which combined the research-based, work-intensive, 90 minutes-of-reading-per-day curriculum, with a sequenced research-based, content curriculum called Core Knowledge, by E.D. Hirsch Jr., author of the popular book series "What Every Kindergartner Needs to Know," "What Every First Grader Needs to Know," etc.
The Legislature says 70 percent control over money, placed at the school level, is adequate, while the governor says such an amount is far short of what will be necessary to free up money for purchase of such rigorous curricula and new textbooks.
The governor's spokesperson maintains that control of 90 percent of school spending at the school level would be necessary to provide the money needed for research-based curricula.
Combining reading mastery curricula with content-item curricula was the formula for success suggested in the "Lift-Off" plan — a task force minority report published after the 1999 Governor's Education Task Force failed to reach consensus. The successful formula is E = mc; where Education equals mastery of curricula.
E = mc works for any discipline.
Solomon and Kauluwela elementary schools used the winning formula. They developed it themselves, and were the first among high poverty schools to demonstrate annual yearly progress four years in a row.
Publishers of such curricula stipulate that anything more than 20 percent of teachers objecting to the adoption of their programs can halt implementation at a school.
These rules allow a small number of teachers to block proven methods from being used at a school. Fortunately, these teachers are only a few in number.
The Lift-off education reform plan that was a draft proposed to the 1999 Governor's Education Task Force, and not approved with the required consensus, was embraced by some business leaders. It recommends money for aligned curriculum, new textbooks, independent assessments, and parental acceptance.
The plan's projections show that full implementation would result in Hawai'i's fourth-grade reading scores going from 208 (one of the lowest in the nation) to a state average of 240 in five years ... topping Connecticut's high state score of 233.
The plan includes rewiring and air-conditioning every classroom, and providing laptop computers for all students.
The cost is high: $368 million compared with $12 million that the Legislature proposes to spend on this session's education reform, not counting the money that will be needed for teacher salary increases.
Will the spending control pushed down to the school level free up $368 million for research-based curriculum, new textbooks, air conditioning and computers?
Many feel there would be a much better chance of an affirmative answer to that question if 90 percent of the state's $1.9 billion education budget were pushed down, instead of the proposed 70 percent.
Also, the plan has no provision to immediately place school principals on performance contracts to ensure that this public money, placed in the hands of 256 individuals, will be spent wisely.
If you have children or grandchildren or friends with students in public school, they have little chance of seeing rigorous curriculums installed under the plans being proposed.
Our students will continue to be puzzled by the questions on the tests, because they haven't been instructed in the material that is tested. This is what happens when you have no curriculum.
I, too, am puzzled as to why we haven't embraced the Lift-off Plan, or at least budgeted the correct amount to allow principals to implement the elements of the plan at each school on their own.
