Panel hears opinions
on education reformTestimony is mixed on Lingle's
idea of local school boards
With Gov. Linda Lingle's campaign for local school boards hitting radios statewide, the Senate Education Committee gave her supporters a chance to be heard yesterday at a meeting at the Capitol.
"I think it would make a significant impact if governance were changed," Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona told a standing-room-only audience that included both sides of the debate. "All we're saying is please give it a chance."
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Rather than a formal public hearing on a specific bill, Senate Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto (D, Salt Lake-Foster Village) solicited public opinion on several options for education reform and heard a variety of recipes for change.
The governor's bill to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to establish local school boards -- voted down twice in the House -- has won little overt support in the Senate. It would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority of both chambers to go before voters this November.
In radio spots that started airing last week, Lingle has been urging listeners to push legislators to adopt her plan for multiple school boards and giving principals control of spending. The commercials are being paid for by her Citizens Achieving Reform in Education committee, or CARE. The group recently became a tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) organization and registered as a political action committee with the state Campaign Spending Commission.
While oral testimony at the meeting was mixed, much of the written testimony endorsed local school boards and giving principals more authority.
The Legislature is moving ahead with a plan to shift more control of operational spending and decisions to the school level. But Democratic leaders support school-based councils on each campus rather than seven local school boards. They also favor a constitutional amendment to expand the Board of Education to 17 from 13 voting members, elected from specific geographic districts rather than at large. The governor proposes an appointed state board.
John Friedman, testifying for the Hawaii State Parent Teacher Association, supported school-based decision making, an elected state board and putting any proposed constitutional amendments on education before voters.
"Decades of research point to site-based management as the most effectual form of school governance reform known," he said.
