Gathering Place
Brennon T. Morioka
Local control needed
to improve schoolsEarlier this year, Democratic legislators derailed Governor Lingle's school reform proposals, including a bill that would have removed principals from the Hawaii Government Employees Association.
According to the Democrats, the bill was unconstitutional. A Feb. 11 Star-Bulletin editorial called this "ridiculous and absurd," and pinpointed the basis of the Democrats' position: "The principals' protective treatment (has) everything to do with public employee unions' political muscle and nothing to do with the Constitution."
The Democrats also have asserted that without the protection of tenure and collective bargaining rights, no one would want to be a principal. It would cripple recruitment efforts, they said in a Feb. 8 Star-Bulletin story ("School principals bill gets derailed").
This isn't just ridiculous or absurd, it just doesn't make sense.
What would be absurd would be to think that we want people at the head of our schools who feel a need for absolute job security or who insist upon compensation unrelated to performance.
It also would be absurd to buy arguments now being made by union leaders that an expected shortage of principals is a reason to leave things exactly as they are. Their thinking is, if we don't maintain the status quo of principals in the union, we will not be able to fill these critically important positions.
I disagree. The looming shortage is a tremendous opportunity, not a problem. However, to take full advantage of it, we must change the way principals are recruited, compensated, supported and held accountable. We should:
>> look outside the Department of Education for candidates. When he was chairman of the University of Hawaii College of Education, John Dolly described the DOE's closed system: "In order to become an administrator, you must come up through the Hawaii system. This closes off the introduction of outside leadership, new ideas and new initiatives, and tends to clone people. You follow the leader or you are not supported for an administrative position."Perhaps you are wondering why common-sense solutions like these have not yet been taken. That gets us to the heart of an even bigger opportunity.>> replace collective bargaining with individual performance contracts. Allowing principals to belong to a union is "a bizarre tradition," according to Dolly. Individuals who feel a need for tenure and collective bargaining are security-seeking bureaucrats, not inspiring leaders.
>> empower principals to select, motivate and fully support each teacher. Professionals in and near the classrooms know best what is working. Hawaii's system is highly centralized, with top-down control. Former public schools superintendent and private school president Rod McPhee's description gets to the heart of it: "Too many decisions are decreed by (DOE) administrators at the top rather than by teachers and principals in the field. No institution can prosper with a system like that."
>> pay successful principals generously and replace unsuccessful ones quickly. Too much is at stake to guarantee job security regardless of performance.
Hawaii's public schools are filled with competent, caring teachers and students who have all the potential in the world, but the current single-district, one-size-fits-all system has been impervious to common-sense changes like these.
If we want meaningful change, we must begin by replacing the statewide Board of Education with local boards that will be watched closely by people who are familiar with, and who care about, the schools in their communities.
As compared to the current statewide board, local boards are far more likely to focus on providing high-quality schools rather than just maintaining the status quo on behalf of special interests. Such efforts could begin with a radical change in the way principals are chosen, compensated, supported and held accountable.
If the Democrats continue to obstruct such changes, they should be replaced by Republicans who will work with the governor to make our public schools the source of pride that they once were.
Brennon T. Morioka is chairman of the Hawaii Republican Party.
