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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Dole Middle School Principal Myron Monte, center, talks with curriculum coordinator Mie Tamura, left, and Farrington Complex resource teacher Carol Emerson.

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Providers vow
to hone curricula

Educational firms say they
will not supplant existing methods

Both the baby and the bath water are safe.

That's the pledge from the three mainland education-reform companies assigned to revamp struggling Hawaii public schools, who say they plan to support, not supplant, what's already going on in classrooms.

Focus on Standards The three mainland school-reform companies working with Hawaii schools will combine technology and professional development sessions to help teachers lift student achievement up to state standards. Edison Alliance Approach: Edison plans to install its own servers at each school to crunch student quiz scores and provide teachers instant feedback on student progress. A team of experts -- including a reading director, math director, English as a second language specialist, two achievement advisors and a technology specialist -- will organize professional development sessions designed to address recurring issues that arise from the test results. Schools: Aiea Elementary, Central Middle, Dole Middle, Jarrett Middle, Kahului Elementary, Paia Elementary, Palolo Elementary. America's Choice Approach: The National Center on Education and the Economy's America's Choice program provides between 40 and 80 days of technical assistance and coaching a year, both on- and off-site, designed to impart effective teaching rituals and routines for meeting the state standards and to enhance school leadership. Certain teachers are designated "coaches" and received special training so that the school can eventually make the program its own. Schools: Hilo Intermediate, Keaau Middle, Kealakehe Elementary, Naalehu Elementary and Intermediate, Pahoa High and Intermediate, Waipahu Intermediate, Waianae Intermediate. ETS Pulliam Approach: The company's IDMS software system will be fed Hawaii's educational standards. Teachers can then plug in the results of regular student tests and get an instant assessment of a student's progress and precise areas where they need to improve. The company's individual content specialists also will suggest teaching methods to help achieve that. Schools: Hana High and Elementary, Maunaloa Elementary, Molokai High, Molokai Intermediate, Nanakuli High and Intermediate, Wahiawa Middle.

"We're going to take advantage of the expertise and professionalism that are already in the schools," said Leslie Pulliam, vice president of school-reform provider ETS Pulliam. "We're doing this together, not to them."

ETS Pulliam, Edison Alliance and the National Center on Education and the Economy will receive a combined $7.9 million to "restructure" 20 underperforming schools. Four others will be reformed directly by state education officials.

The three providers say existing curricula will remain in place but teachers will be offered support options aimed at sharpening the already relentless focus on the state academic standards on which students are tested each spring.

These will include data management systems designed to help teachers keep tabs on individual student progress and pinpoint areas in which instructors aren't getting through.

Support staff, some from the mainland and others hired from the ranks of local educators, will provide advice on teaching methods that break through the logjams and will show how to more closely align classroom instruction to the annual test content.

"The biggest problem for some schools is alignment," Leslie Pulliam said. "If students are tested on certain things but the rest of the system isn't aligned to prepare them for that, they won't be prepared. We see that in every state."

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, consistently poor performance on the tests triggers sanctions culminating in restructuring.

Detailed reform plans tailored to each school's needs are expected to be worked out over the next couple of months, in time for implementation in the fall.

The plans are expected to include dozens of hours a year of training and professional development for teachers and administrators.

"Many schools fail because they lack a comprehensive school design that includes the leadership component," said Vera Vignes, Pacific regional director for NCEE, which will implement its America's Choice program in seven schools. "You need leadership at both the school and district level. If that's missing, you struggle."

The top-to-bottom focus on content standards worries some educators, however. They fear that emphasizing the content of a single test deprives students of a stimulating, well-rounded educational experience encompassing the arts, physical education and science.

"It's terrible. It perverts the whole curriculum," said Arthur King, professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii and a member of its Curriculum Research Development Group. "That's not the way to educate people."

However, Principal Elaine Christian of Hilo Intermediate School, which will work with America's Choice, said the more narrow approach will allow schools to cut out "fluff" such as field trips and other things that are "fun to teach but have nothing to do with standards."

"In the past, there's been too much of that and not enough learning," she said. "You could say they won't get as well-rounded an education, but I'd rather say they're getting a more focused education."

America's Choice and ETS Pulliam have been in the state for years. Their record is mixed, with some schools seeing marked improvement. Any failures are due to unfaithful implementation by school principals, the providers say.

Legislators recently urged the Department of Education to push for money-back guarantees from the providers, but the providers' contracts merely give the state the option of terminating the contract if significant progress isn't achieved over the next two to three years.

If the money going to the providers had been given to schools in the first place, some schools might not be in trouble now, said Derek Bishop, a teacher at Naalehu Elementary School in Kau, which will work with America's Choice.

Bishop said chronic shortages of teachers and inadequate facilities at schools like his will complicate reform.

"Of course, having experts like them come in and help can only be of benefit," he said. "But staff shortages and other limitations will impair the effectiveness of whatever educational philosophy you bring in. It takes the whole state to help a school."