Reform partners
DOE with business

Local leaders help tackle
budget and bureaucracy fixes

Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto has recruited several business leaders, including former Kaneohe Ranch chief Randy Moore, to help guide her department as it launches reforms passed by the Legislature this year.

Moore left his post as chief executive of Kaneohe Ranch in 2001 to become a math teacher at Central Middle School, so he brings classroom as well as business experience to his new position as Hamamoto's project manager for Act 51, the "Reinventing Education Act."

"The superintendent is such an enthusiastic and committed person that it's very hard not to jump on the wagon," said Moore, who is ending his second week on the new job, at his teacher's salary. "It will be a very challenging thing to implement because the change is so substantial and the department is so big."

Other business veterans have come aboard as volunteers in the "reinventing" effort. Bruce Coppa, managing director of The Pacific Resource Partnership, is heading a 41-member Committee on Weights. That group is developing a new formula to determine how and which funds will flow to schools, a potentially touchy issue.

David Carey, president and CEO of Outrigger Enterprises, and Donald Horner, president and chief operating officer of First Hawaiian Bank, are co-chairing the Interagency Working Group that is tackling the cumbersome state bureaucracy.

"There are moments in time when systems are prepared to make changes," Carey said Friday. "I see the potential for fundamental change which will help make things work better."

The public schools now depend on six other state agencies to handle everything from hiring clerks to fixing roofs. The working group will recommend how to transfer such functions to the Department of Education, as called for in the new law.

"It's so nice to have our business partners willing to step up and be part of it," said Deputy Superintendent Clayton Fujie, as the department moves into "uncharted waters" under the new law. "We know we can learn from how they manage, how they have their operations set up. These are exciting times for all of us."

As outsiders to government, the business leaders can play an intermediary role among the various state agencies as they work out turf questions.

"The whole principle is that although we may not necessarily eliminate the bureaucracy in round one, we want to give the Department of Education the ability to control its own destiny," Carey said. "That will make it easier for the public, the Legislature and the governor to hold them accountable."

The Hawaii Business Roundtable has long been committed to improving public education, focusing its recent efforts on helping principals become entrepreneurial leaders.

Moore called his latest occupation -- a classroom teacher -- "the hardest job I've ever had, bar none." His new position, however, may prove to be as challenging.

Over the next few years, the law calls for the creation of a School Community Council at each of 260 campuses to allow for more local decision making; a budget formula based on individual student needs; giving principals more authority and assessing their performance; streamlining the bureaucracy; and "report cards" that show how money is being spent and how student performance measures up at each school.

"It's not just changing the tires while the car is moving; you've got a whole new vehicle by the time you reach the end of the freeway," Moore said.

"As with most organizations, it's been command and control, where the top decides what needs to be done and tells everybody to do it," he said. "Once the restructuring is complete, it will be the schools that have significantly more ability to determine what's best for their student population and more flexibility to spend money as they think is most appropriate."