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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Dems flunked
40-year-long school testThe biggest indictment against the Democratic-controlled state education system is not that party-liners quiver like newts at the prospect of change, but that after nearly a half-century of being in charge, they still can't figure out why the schools suck.
Threatened with a truly radical overhaul of the system by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, Democrats and their entrenched functionaries in the Department of Education are scrambling to once again convince voters that -- voila! -- they have figured out what's wrong with the schools and should be trusted to fix them.
Lingle's simple solution to improving the schools is dismantling the mammoth Soviet-style Board of Education with its cast of thousands and putting control of the schools into smaller, autonomous school districts. Why this should strike fear in the hearts of Democrats and the teachers union is a puzzle. Is it simply the horror of losing the power that comes with a huge politically controlled bureaucracy? That couldn't be it, could it?
But there's some reason why Lingle's vision scares the bejesus out of them. They don't even want students' parents to express their wishes by way of voting on a constitutional amendment. Who can blame them? Last time the voters spoke up, Lingle became the first Republican governor in Hawaii in 40 years.
So they are left instead with trying to convince us that the old jalopy that is the Department of Education doesn't need a major overhaul, it just needs a little tinkering here and there and some new seat covers. It's inconceivable that they think we are that stupid.
HERE are the facts: 1) Hawaii has always scored near the bottom of national student test scores; 2) the Democrats were in power all that time.
You'd have to assume that if someone in the party controlling the state had a clue how to improve student performance, they would have done so in the past 10 or 20 or even 30 years. How many chances do they get?
I've always suspected that if state legislators and other powerful Democratic Party officials put their children into public schools instead of private, public schools would improve overnight.
But since the pols aren't personally affected, improving the public schools is largely a hypothetical exercise for them.
Voters elected Lingle because they wanted to try new ideas. Standard bearers of the status quo, that vast, lackluster army of special interests, are blithely blocking Lingle's attempts to radically change an educational system whose one unarguable claim to fame is that it just doesn't work.
Teddy Roosevelt, backed by his band of freelance adventurers, told the "regular Army" newts quivering at the base of San Juan Hill to "lead, follow or get out of the way!" Democrats have not been able to lead the education system to glory, and they refuse to follow Lingle. They should at least have the decency to get out of the way.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com