Republicans in the state House of Representatives, backing fellow Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, say they won’t support giving the state Department of Education any more money until public education in Hawai‘i is reformed.
“We are fed up with those who join the DOE in asking for even more money year after year when the budget is already projected to rise to $1.7 billion,” said Rep. Galen Fox, speaking for the State House Republican Caucus.
“House Republicans believe there should be no more increases in DOE funding until we first reform education. Enough throwing money at the problem without changing the way business is conducted.
“It is not the amount of funding, rather it’s the way money is spent down through a bloated and obsolete DOE bureaucracy that’s the problem,” Fox said.
“Republicans have consistently fought for cost-effective government, including at the Department of Education. We are fed up with those who attack education budget ‘cuts’ by the governor, when the budget is actually growing,” he continued.
“For decades now, evidence mounts that the DOE has mismanaged our schools: the country’s lowest SAT scores, highest rates of school violence in the nation, lowest ‘National Report Card’ reading scores. Yet the DOE persistently and blindly carries on as before, always asking for more money,” he noted.
“Freed of a bloated bureaucracy, schools will from the existing budget have the resources needed to make long-overdue improvements. It is simply irresponsible to keep asking for money without pledging reform,” he continued.
“Asking for more money to do the same just perpetuates a system that’s failing Hawai‘i’s keiki, and failing Hawai‘i’s future,” he said.
“Instead, let’s give our keiki a chance for a future that’s filled with opportunity. Let’s change our public-education system from a top-down statewide bureaucracy to a ground-up, school-centered, community-based system.
“Let’s move the resources currently consumed by the DOE into the classrooms,” he said. “Let’s adopt a completely equitable means of allocating money to individual schools.
“In short, let’s make reform our way to improve education.”
Lingle’s appointed committee, Citizens Achieving Reform in Education (CARE), begins a series of statewide meetings today at 5:30 p.m. at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Puhi.
Former mayor Maryanne Kusaka is Kaua‘i’s member of the committee.
