Litany of worries Kalaheo High School junior Justin Bagnall is taking part in a letter-writing campaign urging the state Legislature not to cut the education budget or else his school will lose three teachers.
shadows school reform
Legislative proposals for a
new bureaucracy might not
translate to better educationBy Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com"Our legislators seem to think that if they cut programs that all of their problems will go away," said Bagnall, recording secretary of the Windward District student council.
Bagnall likes having a conduit to leaders at the state level to let them know his views on issues affecting students across Hawaii, but now he is worried that access to them may get bottled up with more layers of bureaucracy under legislation moving in the Senate and House.
It is among the litany of concerns being voiced in connection with the so-called decentralization or governance bills intended to restructure how Hawaii's public school system -- the only state with a single school district -- is run.
"It's the first time a breakup of this magnitude has gone this far in recent years," said John Friedman, a Kauai parent and legislative vice president with the Hawaii State Parent Teacher Student Association.
"We don't oppose the legislation but we do have some concerns."
The biggest changes would be to the Board of Education, whose members are currently elected statewide.
The House version calls for the BOE to be abolished and replaced with 15 elected school boards. Each board would oversee a "complex area" or a grouping of school complexes -- high schools and their feeder schools -- with a equal number of schools in each. The 15 boards would each select a complex-area superintendent.
The House measures -- bills 2033 and 2037 -- would have the governor appointing the superintendent of education with approval by the state Senate. The candidates for the superintendent's post would be provided by a newly created selection commission, similar to the way judges are currently named to the bench.
Senate Bills 2102 and 3018 would keep a state Board of Education, but in a different form. Seven educational districts would be created with each district having an elected school board. The chairperson from each district board would serve on the statewide Board of Education, which would continue to appoint the superintendent of education.
Lawmakers have been frustrated at low test scores, federal oversight in special education and other challenges faced by the public school system.
The proposed changes would require amendments to the state Constitution. They would need approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate along with voter approval in the general election.
The general idea of decentralization has bipartisan support this session, but there is still disagreement over the details.
The governor has come out and said that creating local boards will create "little empires."
Decentralization in and of itself should not be seen as a cure-all for education woes, said Robin Lake, associate director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education within the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.
"Rather, it's a tool to gain the flexibility to meet improvement goals," Lake said. "Don't look at decentralization as an end, but as means to increasing student achievement."
Lake said that bringing decision-making over educational issues closer to communities is a powerful tool as long as the local school boards are properly armed.
"I wouldn't go into this lightly and think that you can restructure in a session, but you could make good headway and work on fine-tuning later."
Lake said that some oversight by the state is a good thing, especially to help school districts that are not doing so well.
State Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto is not a fan of the governance measures being considered by the Legislature, pointing out that the real-life applications have yet to be worked out.
"Do we want to throw out the baby and the bath water? Or do we just want to change the bath water and keep the baby and then make sure what we do is not only doable, but we tighten up a lot of the loose ends that need to be tightened up?" Hamamoto said.
"For me the question becomes, Will changing the governance system impact student achievement? Will it result in better outcomes or desired outcomes?"
Friedman said he is concerned about how the changes will affect federal funding to the schools.
Meg Gammon, a Kalaheo High School parent who works at the school and is organizing the Kalaheo letter-writing campaign on cuts to the DOE budget, said that she thinks that it is time for change, but wonders whether all districts would be equipped to handle the new responsibilities.
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