Posted on: Thursday, November 4, 2004

EDITORIAL
Voter response to BOE election passive

In virtually every public opinion poll or survey taken in Hawai'i, voters will cite education as one of their top priorities.

Given the importance voters seem to place on education, it is an abiding mystery that they pay so little attention to it when they have a direct opportunity to make a difference.

Consider the race for the Board of Education. In an election where the typical "blank" or non-vote averaged around 3 or 4 percent, the blank votes in Board of Education elections tallied more than 25 percent on average.

Fully a quarter of the people who went to the polls failed to indicate a choice. It is not clear whether this is the result of apathy or lack of knowledge; whatever the cause, it is a sobering fact for those truly concerned about the quality of education in our state.

With a quarter of the voters abstaining, the remainder cast ballots for four incumbents and three newcomers.

While no one can say for sure what motivated the votes, surely name recognition was an important factor. The four incumbents have obvious recognition as being members of the board.

The three newcomers include a well-known educator from her home district of Kaua'i and two at-large candidates, Cec Heftel and Lei Ahu Isa, who have recognition as previous public-office holders.

Ahu Isa served in the state Legislature and Heftel, who spent a substantial amount of money on advertising for his campaign, is well known as a former congressman and candidate for governor.

The driving issues in public education today are Act 51, the "reinventing education" act passed by Democrats in the 2004 Legislature, and Gov. Linda Lingle's on-going effort to break up the statewide school district into as many as seven local districts.

While the majority of the winning candidates appear to favor the Act 51 approach, there was no sense of a voter mandate to support that law through their selection of candidates.

Our hope is that these newcomers and returning veterans will join the six holdovers on the Board of Education in forging a strong, unified approach toward the difficult task ahead of education reform.

There is no need for unanimous agreement on every aspect of reform, as indeed there is not today. But there should be agreement that whatever policies the board adopts and whatever programs it puts into place be universally dedicated to the same overall goal: improving the quality of the interaction between every teacher and every child.

If that happens, the public will be well-served and perhaps even energized to pay closer attention to who gets on the board in the next election, two years hence.