THE fact that students apparently have commandeered some 16,000 textbooks could be the best news to come out of the public school system in ages. Lost books speak
volumes about schoolsI guess it would be too much to hope that the kids decided to keep the books because they were so enthralled with the subject matter that they wanted to spend hours on their own studying and reading the tomes.
Perhaps there is a thriving black market in purloined primers, a veritable seething underworld where information and knowledge are secretly trafficked by budding geniuses frustrated by the inadequate formal instruction offered by the burgeoning bureaucratic public school system.
Nah.
Odds are the missing books are just one more symptom of a school system on life support, trundling along like a shopping cart with only three good wheels; underfinanced, over-managed and hopelessly misdirected.
If you think a new school superintendent is going to solve the problem, you don't understand what's going on.
Imagine a car company that exists only because of government handouts, not because of the quality of its end product. Imagine that that product is a car with 12 wheels, one seat, 14 radios and an ashtray the size of a satellite dish. Overseeing the production of this monstrosity is a 100-member board of directors elected because of their name recognition, not because they have an iota of experience in car production. Imagine that elected public officials charged with the oversight of this company do not allow any of their family members to work in the factory and instead send them to work in private car companies that produce outstanding automobiles.
Now, into this mix, imagine that the 100-member board of directors hires a brand new "plant superintendent" to "run" things. But the board attaches so many strings to the "superintendent" that there is no way for him to institute any real change without their approval, thereby assuring that the plant will continue to crank out its wobbly product.
Oh yeah, and just before they hire this new savior, the 100-member board of directors suddenly realizes that employees have walked off with 16,000 carburetors.
That's the problem, folks.
Now, this isn't a slap at any particular teachers or school employees. They are doing the best they can under extremely harsh circumstances. If a clock doesn't run right, you don't blame it on the individual gears, you blame it on the people who designed the clock.
I've said before that the public school system will never get better until ALL ELECTED PUBLIC OFFICIALS enroll their children in public schools. As long as the people with the real political power to change things put their kids in private school, the public schools will suffer.
Failing to put their kids in public schools is a clear, unmistakable statement that those elected officials want their kids to have the best education possible and that education is not to be found in public schools. That they then claim to represent the public in their government-paid positions is a travesty. Anyone who doesn't have confidence in the public school system or is not willing to do whatever it takes to improve the system, does not deserve to be elected to public office.
Hawaii must stop running its public school system like some sort of Third World, Soviet-style, widget-production collective and convert it to a sleek, competitive modern enterprise.
They could start by examining how Punahou and Iolani operate. I doubt if those schools have lost 16,000 books.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
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71224.113@compuserve.com.
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