In a joint meeting, the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and the state Board of Education will consider $3.5 million worth of initiatives aimed at improving teacher training and retention and student performance. Both boards are expected to approve the recommendations, worked out in joint efforts during the past six months.
They worked together because UH supplies the bulk of new teachers for Hawaii's public schools, while public school graduates make up the majority of students entering the university.
The boards' task forces initially had a $107 million wish list but whittled that down to $6.4 million. Then UH president Kenneth Mortimer and state Department of Education superintendent Herman Aizawa cut further, focusing on $3.5 million in projects needing legislative funding.
"Part of it is just recognizing the financial constraints of the state and the fact that both boards do have other cost items before the Legislature, so I believe we'll be taking the conservative route," said board chairwoman Karen Knudsen.
Among the recommendations:
Fill eight of 15 vacant faculty positions in the UH College of Education, and have those professors focus on preparing students to teach in shortage areas such as math, science, special education and in outlying schools with high teacher turnover. Cost: $400,000.
Give 50 $3,000 scholarships and 10 graduate assistantships to UH education students willing to teach special education, science, math, Hawaiian language immersion and vocational education once they graduate. Cost: $300,000, half for the scholarships and half for the assistantships.
Provide financial incentives, including up to a half-month's pay, for 300 new teachers willing to work in shortage areas or in schools with traditionally high teacher turnover. Cost: $642,000, or about $2,140 for each teacher.
Create a mentor teacher program aimed at reducing the attrition rate of first-year teachers by pairing them with experienced instructors. Cost: $1.56 million to pay 780 mentor teachers stipends of $2,000 each.
Other recommendations aim at better preparing high school graduates for the rigors of college, upgrading telecommunications at UH and in the public schools and using the improved technology to expand "distance learning" such as televised interactive courses.
If funded by the Legislature, the programs would help correct weaknesses in teaching quality cited this month by Education Week newspaper.
Among other things, the national report faulted Hawaii for not having an induction program for new teachers, offering no incentives for teachers to seek national board certification, and having 12 percent (in 1994) of teachers with temporary, emergency or no licenses.
Most of Hawaii's uncertified teachers are in the shortage areas of special education, math, science and vocational education, areas the boards' recommendations address. The joint effort also recommends creating a new teacher induction program.
"We, in the department and at UH, had been working on those issues long before that (Education Week) report came out," Aizawa said.
Neither state House Finance chairman Calvin Say nor state Senate Ways and Means Committee co-chairwoman Lehua Fernandes-
Salling returned phone calls seeking comment on the requests.