Sunday, April 29, 2001

ILLUSTRATION BY KIP AOKI / STAR-BULLETIN

Everyone agrees Hawaii's public
school system needs fixing, but
there's no consensus on
how to repair it

---

By Cynthia Oi
Star-Bulletin

WHEN AN CAR MALFUNCTIONS, a mechanic finds the problem, fixes it and gets the car back on the road.

If only an overhaul of Hawaii's public schools were that simple. Within the educational system, the broken parts aren't easily pinpointed so it chugs along in fits and starts, leaving in its wake children who are ill-prepared for jobs, for college, for life.

The strike by school teachers earlier this month heightened an awareness of the system's defects. People inside and outside of education debate the extent of the problem but none say that it doesn't need fixing.

What emerges from a variety of conversations about public education here is a portrait of unclear lines of authority, a lack of accountability and inadequate communication among decision makers. The state Department of Education is a complicated, unwieldy institution employing 30,000 people governed by four separate entities whose authorities overlaps.

The DOE's funds are allocated by the state Legislature, which determines how those funds are used. The state's administration releases the money to the Board of Education, which oversees financial plans, policies, rules, regulations and programs. The board directs the work of the school superintendent, the chief executive officer charged with carrying out policies and directs the district offices and school principals.

In all of this structure, no one is in charge. No one has clear authority over the entire system. And nearly everyone blames someone else for the shortcomings.

From a raft of studies come indicators of just how broken is Hawaii's public education. The average scores for the 4,595 public school students who took the 2000 Scholastic Assessment Test trailed the national public school scores by an uncomfortable margin. Students in Hawaii scored 461 on the verbal test, compared with the national average of 501 while scoring 491 on math compared with an average of 510 in the nation.

The American Legislative Exchange Council earlier this year ranked Hawaii in the lower half (13th out of the 24 states and the District of Columbia) in which the SAT was the main college entrance exam, and 34th out of 51 in academic achievement.

QUALITY COUNTS 2000, an annual report by Education Week newspaper, gave Hawaii a "D+" for standards and accountability, ranking fourth from the bottom among all states. And in 1999, Hawaii's student drop-out rate was 18 percent, improving the next year to about 13 percent. The University of Hawaii at Manoa has for several years been ranked in the third tier of colleges by U.S. News and World Report. The university's graduation rate was barely over 50 percent compared with 82 percent at the University of California in Berkeley.

Polls suggest that parents in Hawaii believe the system is broken. In one poll, the top five problems were a lack of financial support; large, overcrowded classes; poor curriculum and low standards; a lack of discipline cause both by teachers and parents; and a lack of supplies, materials and equipment.

Hawaii is by no means the only state with deeply troubled public education. This is a national crisis. During the presidential election, both the Republican winner, President Bush, and his Democratic opponent, Albert Gore, spent many hours on the campaign trail seeking to persuade American voters that each had a plan to overcome the shortcomings in education. Shortly after he took office in January, Bush sent to the Congress a packet of proposals to reform education. Among them were plans to mandate more standardized tests for students, to permit students whose schools did not measure up to transfer to other schools, and overall, to hold the states accountable for improved education. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said last week that reform in education was the president's "top priority."

IN HAWAII, THE DIFFUSION of authority and responsibility for education leads to a bewildering burden of accountability; no one knows whether money spent on public education is used wisely and no one can clearly measure how well the school system works.

State Auditor Marion Higa has tried for years to get a handle on where the DOE's funds go. She has pushed the department to use new technology to keep track of its dollars, and while it has recently installed computer software that should help, "the DOE says it does not capture that information."

"I'm pretty sure that the board also doesn't know where the money is going and I'm not sure if this isn't deliberate," Higa said. "Those in control would rather not have others know what they are doing."

Karen Knudsen, who has been on the Board of Education for 10 years, acknowledges that accountability is difficult. Even so, she argues that this isn't what taints public education. Instead, she points to the board and the department going hat in hand to the Legislature every session to ask for money. From one year to the next, the program for the schools may have to be adjusted or scrapped, depending on the lawmakers' favors.

"If we had a dedicated fund, we would be able to make sure we have adequate funds for something we want to do," she said. Uncertainty makes long-term planning tenuous.

Knudsen sees this as a power conflict. "The board has the policy making (power), but not the funding. The Legislature has the funds, but not the policy."

As a former legislator and new member of the BOE, Donna Ikeda has a dual perspective. "The department has a great deal of latitude" as to how to spend its money, she said. Although the Legislature sets apart operational and capital funding, "the department has flexibility, but with that comes responsibility."

"Before you can ask for more money, you have to explain how you used the previous budget," she said. "Is the money being used to go to the students?"

ACCOUNTABILITY ASIDE, Ikeda believes that the board, the department, the Legislature and the state's administration "are not on the same page."

"As long as each entity operates separately, without agreement, nothing is going to change," she said. "There's no one person who is in the lead."

As a businessman, Chamber of Commerce president Stanley Hong points to the absence of clear lines of authority.

"To be frank, in most successfully run organizations, there must be management in charge, there should be authority," said Hong.

"Change is painful and people are reluctant to accept change, but if you want to build something excellent you need change."

Governor Cayetano doesn't believe the public schools "are as bad as critics make it out to be." As a practical matter, however, he sees old buildings, students with disciplinary problems and teachers lacking professional training.

In addition, school principals are members of a union. "Principals should be part of management. That would give the superintendent a freer hand in choosing members for his team," Cayetano said. Principals are the key, he asserts. "You look at the good schools and you'll see the principals are good."

The governor contends that the BOE should be appointed, much like the UH Board of Regents. Political ambition would not compromise decision-making as it does now with an elected school board. Individual members get bogged down in catering to their constituents.

Many officials, principals and teachers point to the parents as not being enough engaged in the education of their children. John Friedman, president of Hawaii State Parent-Teacher-Student Association, underscores the lack of parental participation.

"Parents should not only be welcome in the process, but sought out," Friedman said. "The most meaningful thing we can do is to create an environment where parents know teachers, teachers know students and students know that they are cared about."

LIKE OTHERS, Friedman downplayed the poor test scores and national rankings as not being a good measure of failure. Knudsen agrees but cannot calibrate quality.

Neither can Higa. "I really don't know. I don't have a yardstick," she said.

Ikeda was also at a loss: "If we could sit down and talk story and set an agenda, maybe we could come up with a plan." Even with that, Higa remained skeptical: "I don't see an emergence of leadership and vision that would make changes."

Ideas for fixing the system fly every which way. Proposals come from Republicans in the Legislature that a county-governing body would tailor programs to student needs while curtailing spending. Others counter that smaller isn't necessarily better. Some parents seek improved school-community management. Other parents favor independent charter schools to focus on specific learning needs.

All of these point to deep discomfort with the way schools are run. They raise serious questions about the quality of education in the islands. That unease will continue until there is a clear evaluation of the schools.