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To Our Readers
CHARLES Toguchi once drew us an organizational chart for the Department of Education. In the middle was a box marked superintendent. Arranged in a circle around that box were seven or eight others: governor, legislature, board of education, multiple unions, auditors, parents, task forces, etc. Each box in the circle had an arrow aimed straight at the superintendent. Playing the blame game
Things haven't changed much since Toguchi ran the DOE. It still serves many masters and each still blames all the others for what's wrong with public education in Hawaii.
I bring this up only because 38 cents of every dollar we pay in state tax funds the DOE, an unsatisfactory system for which nobody -- and everybody -- is ultimately responsible.
Gov. Ben Cayetano says education is his top priority. To prove it he points first to bricks and mortar: 13 new schools, 900 new classrooms, gyms, cafeterias and libraries. To his credit, he also added seven days to the school year, but Cayetano doesn't talk about what is actually taught in Hawaii schools.
Accountability is his new watchword: Start teacher competency testing by 2001. OK, but is the reason Hawaii schools don't measure up poor teachers, or is this just another round of the blame game?
Ask Cayetano about the new Hawaii Performance Standards that recently got grades of D-plus and D-minus in national ratings of public education standards. He'll say there's more to accountability than standards. There are unexcused absences, test scores and other measurements for which schools should account.
True, but is Hawaii's biggest money pit really getting the attention from the top it needs to accomplish a turnaround?
Don't look to the Legislature for answers. It capped the annual salary for Hawaii's top educator --the man who runs the system that costs you and me $1.2 billion a year -- at $90,041. Then it voted down a bill to let the school board set a competitive salary.
If blame's your game, blame our lawmakers.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.