Five steps to improving public schools
By David A. PendletonEDUCATION reform is sweeping across the country. States are experimenting with vouchers, tuition credits, smaller schools, charter schools, scholarships and the like. Why? Because parents and employers are increasingly dissatisfied with the educational product delivered by public education, particularly by our inner-city schools. The demands for meaningful education reform have now reached Hawaii. Parents have come to the conclusion that the problems we face, while not insurmountable, will clearly require more than simply larger appropriations.
Even if the problems could be solved with more money, the fact is: We simply don't have the money. Accordingly, I suggest five areas on which we should concentrate.
First, we must reduce the DOE hierarchy's impact on educational initiative and the overall DOE budget.
The DOE has 189,281 students enrolled in our public schools. It employs 18,857 classified employees and salaried teachers as well as 10,825 casual (part-time or substitute) employees. Of these employees, 743 are administrators. There is one administrator above principal for every 834 public school students.
While it is clear we require supervisors, planners and administrators, the question is whether we need this many to support the teachers actually in the trenches fighting our war against illiteracy.
Second, we must permit the creation of more charter schools. State law permits up to 25, yet only two have been able to survive the regulatory hurdles that our DOE has placed in their path.
A summer 1997 study by the Center for Education Reform reports 19 states nationwide with very good charter school statutes, which enable many public schools to be innovative. But the center lists Hawaii as one - along with Mississippi and Arkansas - which has a charter school statute "requiring improvement."
Third, we must make our public schools safe. They are becoming centers of violence and drug use rather than models of academic excellence. Our first duty, as set forth in the preamble to our state Constitution, is to "preserve the qualify of life." Certainly, that would entail shielding our keiki from physical violence.
Fourth, we must make our public schools more accountable to the public. Parents should be provided detailed information about the performance of our public schools. While our newspapers regularly publish standardized test scores so that people can compare and contrast how schools are performing, they also need access to, among other things, attendance records, criminal statistics or juvenile statistics as to the prevalence of crime and violence on school campuses, graduation rates, and data regarding special programs available in our schools. The DOE should make such information available in a friendly format.
Fifth, we must reward innovation in public education. Initially, we should focus on administrative innovation: delivering more education product for less money. This should not be difficult in the physical factory of education: the books, computers, libraries and the schools themselves.
The DOE's operations expenditures for fiscal year 1994-95 was $1,058,601,305. According to the 1996 State of Hawaii Data Book, it costs $5,794 per year to educate each public school student. In contrast, yearly tuition per pupil is $3,605 at St. John Vianney School in Kailua and $4,500 at St. Francis School in Honolulu.
The Legislature could make available additional appropriations to those public schools that show significant improvement in test scores, or reward schools that have students enrolled in advanced-placement courses, have higher graduation rates or higher college acceptance statistics.
We just need an open mind and the courage to change. Our keiki are counting on us.
State Rep. David A. Pendleton, a former teacher, is an attorney and is married to Board of Education member Noemi Pendleton. Their son attends public school.