Board of Education members had tough words last night for legislative proposals that would usurp their power over charter schools, saying lawmakers should either leave them alone to run the charter schools or create another system of governance.

"If it's the Legislature's intent to remove the authority from the board, then do it entirely," said Donna Ikeda, herself a former senator. "Either you're going to give us a chance to work on this or totally remove it from us."

Emotions were high in debate over a proposal to expand duties of the Charter School Review Panel to effectively limit the board's power, with clear divisions among BOE members.

"I don't think we're advocating as strongly for charter schools as for others," said new board member Kim Coco Iwamoto. Ikeda called for a workshop to try to mend continuing ill will between the board and the charters.

"There is this perception the board is against charter schools and I don't know how you make that go away," said Ikeda. "It makes it difficult to govern a system where there is no trust."

The board strongly supported maintaining control over the charters — as called for in the state Constitution — and asked for support to establish administrative rules for the charter system and work with the new review panel to approve additional schools. And they opposed a measure suggested by the governor to set up a "mirror image" board to run charters.

Maunalei Love, acting executive director of the charter school office, told board members there have been no expenditures hidden from the charter school network and said her office is even suggesting a budget reduction because fewer school visits have been possible. At the previous meeting, board member Garrett Toguchi charged that money was "hidden" in the central office and that more should be going to the schools.

In other actions, the board heard that the public education system they govern is facing greater challenges than it had a year ago, including an increase in the number of dropouts, slippage in the high school graduation rate and a rise in the number of students with special needs.

According to the 2006 Superintendent's Report released yesterday, the dropout rate climbed from 14.9 percent in 2005 to 15.7 percent last year. Meanwhile, the graduation rate dipped slightly from 79.5 percent in 2005 to 79.2 percent in 2006.

In presenting the latest annual overview of public school performance, DOE officials pointed out some of the bright spots, including an upward trend in reading and math proficiency among students statewide.

Math proficiency has gone from 19.13 percent in 2003 to 27.11 percent in 2006. Reading proficiency has improved from 39.2 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2006.

Other changes include: