Dueling visions As the Legislature ponders how best to improve the state's struggling public education system, there's no shortage of ideas to consider.
stall BOE reform
Lawmakers appear no closer
to a decision on governing schoolsBy B.J. Reyes
Associated Press
From Gov. Linda Lingle: Let voters decide on a constitutional amendment that would allow for at least seven locally elected school boards.
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From the House: Set up 15 school-complex advisory councils with authority to conduct evaluations of superintendents, oversee capital improvements, evaluate curriculum, manage grants and purchase supplies and equipment.
Most recently, the Senate Education Committee approved measures on Friday that would set up seven interim advisory councils while voters decide whether to set up regional boards of education to work in concert with the state board.
"Maybe it's because everybody has their own dream, their own vision," said Shannon Ajifu, a member of the state Board of Education. "Somehow we need to sit down together and hammer it out and not just be so stuck on their own vision."
What measure ultimately is adopted depends on how the House and Senate can work out their differences.
Last session, both chambers advanced bills to let voters decide on an amendment setting up local boards.
That proposal died in conference committee as Senate lawmakers balked, instead pushing a measure to examine various school governance issues.
But with so many plans on the table, the issue of school governance does not appear any closer to being decided this session.
"It's taken the Legislature three years to come up with an idea of a question that you'll put forward on the ballot," Sen. Cal Kawamoto (D, Waipahu) said Friday. "And you expect the voters out there to understand what the heck they're voting on?"
House leaders do not appear ready to approve any measure allowing for a constitutional question this session, noting that they have ample time to further study the issue because any such vote would not occur until 2004.
"You have to understand how important it is that if you create local school boards, you should allow them to have taxing powers," House Speaker Calvin Say (D, St. Louis Heights-Wilhelmina Rise) said in a briefing last week with Associated Press member newspaper editors and reporters. "You just can't create a local school board without that component -- taxation powers."
On that issue, others seem to agree: Any measure for school reform will have to address funding.
"Without money, I don't care what our organizational scheme is, we're still going to look inadequate," Ajifu said.
But as the state struggles financially amid the recovery from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the current war in Iraq, all agencies are being forced to cut back.
Senate lawmakers attempted to address the issue of school funding by passing a bill to increase the state's general excise tax by 12.5 percent for 10 years to generate funds for education.
The measure has not been heard in the House.
Sen. Gary Hooser (D, Kauai-Niihau) said once the governance issue is addressed, "we can then focus on finding the money and directing the money in the right fashion to the right places -- to the schools, to the principals, to the students. Not throwing money at the problem, but directing it where it's needed."
Senate Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto (D, Salt Lake-Foster Village) said he was hopeful that all of the issues could be addressed as the measure moves forward.
"We're still in the third quarter of our process," he said.
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