The interests of Hawai'i's children should be our highest priority. Unfortunately, our public education system often fails to put students first. Furlough Fridays are the latest and most obvious indication that something is badly wrong.

Teachers, principals and parents — who want to do their best — are also victims of our broken system.

Hawai'i can create schools that put students first, but meaningful change will be difficult. The public education system spends billions of dollars each year and employs more workers than Hawaiian Electric Industries, HMSA, Alexander & Baldwin, Hawaiian Airlines, Kaiser Permanente Hawai'i, First Hawaiian Bank and Bank of Hawaii combined.

Yet what have been the results?

• Median scores on national exams put Hawai'i near the bottom of all the states.

• Business and military leaders say the reputation of Hawai'i's public schools makes it difficult to attract top personnel to the Islands.

• Labor unions say public school graduates are often unable to pass apprentice exams.

• The University of Hawai'i says many public high school graduates are not ready to take college-level courses offered at the community colleges. According to placement exams, 79 percent need remediation in math and more than half in reading.

• Local companies say most high school graduates are unprepared even for entry-level jobs.

• Furlough Fridays: At a time when students need more time in the classroom — not only to learn essential skills, but to prepare for tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act — those who run Hawai'i's schools made one of the nation's shortest school years even shorter.

The present system is controlled collectively by the Board of Education, Legislature and governor. It's as if we have a single car with three very different drivers, each trying to navigate a different route while arguing with each other. The results are predictable. We can't expect good results — or know whom to blame for bad results — with so many competing leaders.

At the school level, it is unrealistic to expect success from principals who have too little control over resources and staffing. For example, it can take years of painstaking effort before a principal can remove an underperforming teacher from the classroom.

Here is how we can create an education system that puts students first.

REPLACE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

Make the governor fully accountable for public education in Hawai'i by replacing the elected Board of Education with one that is appointed by the governor.

The board would then choose the superintendent.

No one is fully accountable now. The governor, Legislature and elected school board all share responsibility for education. Shared power means no one is fully accountable, and each group blames the others for failures.

Ask yourself: How many members of the Board of Education can you name? What do you know about their backgrounds? What is their position on education? Most people will have difficulty answering these questions. In contrast, voters closely watch each election for governor and the major issues in the campaigns are well reported and understood. If the governor were accountable for public education, student outcomes and key education issues would be highlighted as a major part of the state's main political campaign.

Make no mistake, powerful interests will fight to protect the status quo.

An elected school board may seem more democratic, but few individual voters watch school board campaigns nearly as closely as do the unions that represent teachers, administrators and other employees of the Department of Education.

Virtually every governor over the past 50 years has tried in one way or another to decentralize or reform the DOE. Each effort has had broad support from the public, but each failed because the system fought back against effective reform and the governor did not have the authority to overcome an entrenched bureaucracy. By giving ultimate responsibility to a single elected official — the governor — real reforms can happen.

POWER TO THE PRINCIPALS

Give principals the power and resources to be true leaders of each school, and then hold them accountable.

Principals make all the difference in the success or failure of a school; there are numerous examples nationally where a principal has transformed a failed school. But most principals in Hawai'i feel powerless to make needed changes. We must give them the resources and clear-cut authority to transform their schools. Principals should be able to hire teachers and terminate underperforming teachers based on an evaluation process that emphasizes student growth and achievement.

Principals also need to wrest control of their budgets from centralized bureaucracies, which are insensitive to local needs. Principals currently control less than half the school-level budget, and almost all of that must cover personnel costs, leaving little for the particular needs of individual schools.

Put 90 percent of each school's budget under the principal's control, with support and oversight from a complex-area administrative team. They can allocate school-level resources better than a centralized bureaucracy. Though centralized services seem to make sense from an efficiency standpoint, greater efficiency will be achieved when principals have the option of paying for services from the DOE out of their school budget or finding a more cost-effective alternative.

MORE CLASSROOM TIME FOR STUDENTS

Children need more time to learn and teachers more time to teach. Hawai'i had one of the shortest school years in the country, now made even shorter by furlough Fridays. The quality of classroom time is crucial to learning, but so is the quantity.

Preparing for important student tests takes time. Teachers argue that the testing required by the No Child Left Behind Act forces them to teach to the test and neglect other learning. Tests are not only required by law; they are a significant contributor to assessing student outcomes. Increasing classroom time will help students master the fundamentals and meet the standards that are tested, without sacrificing the development of other essential skills, such as critical thinking.

JUST THE BEGINNING

Our recommendations would be the foundation for a transformation of Hawai'i's public schools, but we recognize that more will be needed. Placing proper emphasis on student growth and achievement will require restructuring the education bureaucracy, ensuring that more resources make their way to the classroom and adopting changes that improve the quality of teaching, such as pay for performance, a student growth-and-accountability model, better support for charter schools and other reforms associated with the federal "Race to the Top" program.

Of course, further reforms should be the subject of many future conversations, but we stress, from this day forward, accountability is essential and that student growth and achievement must be the primary objective.

George R. Ariyoshi, John Waihee and Ben Cayetano served as governors of Hawai'i collectively from 1974 to 2002. They are honorary co-chairs of the new organization Hawai'i's Children First, which is advocating for education reform. They wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.