Lingle’s poll finally
released in fullThe governor delays releasing
data on certain topics
As her education initiatives were running into trouble at the Legislature, Gov. Linda Lingle publicly touted data from an internal poll that supported her proposals but kept secret the results that tended to undermine them, a Star-Bulletin analysis shows.
And for more than two weeks, the administration wouldn't make the poll public despite repeated requests by the Star-Bulletin. On Friday, a day after being told the newspaper was writing a story about Lingle's efforts to keep the survey under wraps, it was released.
Russell Pang, a Lingle spokesman, denied the administration was stonewalling. He said getting approvals to release the poll was delayed because two key people were traveling for part of that time. Pang also questioned whether the internal results actually undermined the governor's initiatives.
Lingle in late March announced that the poll -- commissioned by her office but privately funded -- found that 74 percent of those surveyed want to vote on the issue of local school boards. The survey also showed that 75 percent believe schools should control 90 cents of every dollar spent on education and 80 percent believe principals should be held accountable for student progress.
Those are key components of the governor's reform proposals. But the survey data she released to the public at an education summit March 27 in Kapolei reflected only three questions from a 14-question telephone poll conducted in late January and early February.
What Lingle didn't mention was that the same survey showed that when people were asked to name the biggest problem facing public schools -- without being given specific choices to pick from -- "lack of funding" was the No. 1 answer by a wide margin. (A category designated "other" actually garnered a higher percentage, but that was a catch-all group for responses that didn't fit into 18 broad areas).
Lingle has said lack of funding is not the problem with the education system. What is the problem, she has said, is that not enough money is being spent at the school level because of what she calls a top-heavy bureaucracy.
Only 5 percent of the respondents cited "too much bureaucracy" as the biggest problem, according to the poll.
Those were among the answers people came up with on their own.
When they were read a list of education-related issues and asked to pick one they thought most important, 17 percent -- the highest percentage -- selected "increasing state funding for public education."
Sending a mixed message when compared with the first question, another 12 percent -- the third highest percentage on this question -- chose "reducing the bureaucracy," while 6 percent picked "more local control over schools."
The centerpiece of the Republican governor's reform plan has been to replace a statewide Board of Education with at least seven locally elected ones.
That idea and other parts of her plan were not included in the education reform bill that the Democratic-controlled Legislature recently passed and sent to Lingle. The governor has yet to sign the measure.
Democrats on Friday criticized Lingle for her selective release of poll results, including on the Web, as the Legislature was debating various education measures. On an administration Web site on education reforms, a section on the poll only included results from the three questions. No mention was made of the other 11. The site recently was taken down.
"The governor's spin machine is desperately spinning out of control," said Rep. Scott Saiki, House majority leader. "The governor's decision to use selective data was patronizing and a blatant attempt to mislead the public."
Lingle spokesmen denied her actions were meant to manipulate the message.
"That's certainly not our intention," said Bob Awana, Lingle's chief of staff.
Pang, her press spokesman, said the poll was supposed to be internal, used solely for planning purposes such as to help develop the administration's legislative strategy. It was not intended to be made public, Pang added.
But when Lingle's speech for the Kapolei summit was written, it focused on the three areas reflected in the three poll questions, and a decision was made to incorporate those questions into the speech, he said.
"We could strengthen that (speech) with those poll numbers," Pang said.
If Lingle wanted to use the poll to help bolster her efforts at the Legislature, she could have released the results much sooner -- the data were tallied by late February -- when her key reform measures were still alive, according to Pang. By the time of the Kapolei summit, the House bill asking voters to decide on local school boards had been killed, he said.
Lingle also could have, but did not, release other positive poll results, such as the 70 percent favorable job rating she received, Pang said.
Asked why it took so long to release the poll to the Star-Bulletin, he said the administration first wanted to check with the pollster about what he felt comfortable releasing, given that the polling methodology contained proprietary data. But the pollster was traveling for part of the time, Pang said.
Also, Awana was on a trip abroad for six days and only returned Friday, contributing to the delayed response, Pang said.
The Star-Bulletin first asked to see the complete poll in early April and on April 8 -- a week before Awana left on his trip -- started regularly pressing for its release.
The poll of 600 registered voters statewide was conducted Jan. 29 to Feb. 2 by the Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm based in Virginia.
Not all the numbers Lingle initially kept secret tended to undermine her education initiatives.
When the respondents were asked whether they favored or opposed four key ideas in Lingle's reform package, for example, 57 percent said they "strongly" or "somewhat" favored creating at least seven locally elected school boards, her centerpiece proposal.
Yet that idea garnered easily the lowest favorable numbers of the four and had by far the strongest opposition. Those numbers weren't mentioned in the Kapolei speech, even though Lingle specifically promoted the notion of allowing voters to decide the board issue.
The $20,000 tab for the poll is to be paid for by donations raised by Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, the private nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation that the Lingle administration established just before the legislative session to raise money and lobby for her education initiatives.
Of the 14 non-demographic questions asked in the poll, three did not deal with education issues, including the question about Lingle's job performance.
Mainland experts say such polling is permitted under the federal regulations governing 501(c)4 organizations, the type of tax-exempt status CARE has.
The Lingle administration is under investigation by the state Ethics Commission for providing state resources to the private organization, an apparent violation of state ethics law. Lingle has since severed ties to CARE.
