Principals’ autonomy
is debatedLegislators grapple with how to
disperse control over the
education budget
Critics of the Democrats' education reform bills have focused on two questions: How much authority will principals have to make decisions, and how much of the education budget will they control?
While the final verdict will not be reached until the end of the legislative session, senators and representatives took steps to answer each question yesterday in separate committee meetings.
The House Education and Labor committees voted to give principals control of at least 75 percent of the general funds appropriated to the state Department of Education, excluding debt service. That falls short of the 90 percent sought by Gov. Linda Lingle's administration but is far more than what principals now oversee.
"We are going to start the discussion at this level and see where it goes," said House Education Chairman Roy Takumi (D, Pearl City-Pacific Palisades). "I don't think we as legislators know what is a good number."
In Edmonton, Canada, which has a school system held up as a model, nearly 92 percent of operating funds are controlled at the school level. But the Lingle administration has not been able to identify any U.S. school district that has reached 90 percent.
The two U.S. cities cited by the governor's education consultant, William Ouchi, as models for giving principals autonomy are Seattle, which allocates 79.3 percent, and Houston, at 58.6 percent. He pegged New York's and Los Angeles' figures at less than 7 percent. Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said Thursday that principals in Hawaii have discretion over about 15 percent of their schools' budgets.
The two House committees also completely replaced the language in Senate Bill 3238, SD2, with their own education reform legislation, House Bill 2002, HD2. Senate Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto (D, Salt Lake-Foster Village) said later he had no objection to that move because ultimately, "we need one bill" and the two sides will keep refining it.
Mark Recktenwald, director of the state Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs, who testified on behalf of the governor against both bills, said late yesterday he could not comment on changes to either one because the latest drafts were not yet available in written form.
Earlier yesterday, the Senate Education and Ways and Means committees amended HB2002, HD2, to give principals more autonomy, adopting language suggested by the Hawaii Business Roundtable. Rather than calling for a mediator when the school community council deadlocks on issue, it gives principals "final decision-making authority" with a provision for appeals.
Recktenwald had decried taking such disputes to mediation as "costly, time-consuming and inefficient," and as a way to make it "impossible to hold principals accountable."
Two Republican senators, Sam Slom (Diamond Head-Hawaii Kai) and Fred Hemmings (Lanikai-Waimanalo), voted against the amended bill, saying it leaves too much power with the central office because, unlike the House version adopted later that day, it did not specify how much of the budget principals would control.
"Principals will be still creatures of the union and creatures of the centralized bureaucracy," Hemmings said.
Republican Sens. Gordon Trimble (Downtown-Waikiki) and Bob Hogue (Kaneohe-Kailua), however, supported the amended version, with reservations.
"You've incorporated some terrific amendments," Trimble said to Sakamoto. "I thank you."