• Education reform — Take two Education reform — Take two As predicted last year, education reform remains at the forefront of the legislative agenda for the 2004 session of the Legislature. The issue has been politicized through the rejection
• Education reform — Take two
Education reform — Take two
As predicted last year, education reform remains at the forefront of the legislative agenda for the 2004 session of the Legislature.
The issue has been politicized through the rejection of Gov. Linda Lingle’s plan to place the question of changing the statewide Board of Education — the only one in existence in the entire United States — to a system with seven local school boards on the general election ballot in November. The Republican governor’s plan was recently rejected by the Democratic leadership in the Legislature.
Late last week Lingle again proposed another slate of education reform measures to the Legislature. This will be the governor’s last chance before the decisive month of May rolls around, a time when legislative bills take their final form.
Lingle has her own take on what the Democrats are proposing. Her two main points are allocating 90 percent of the total education operating budget to public schools, and again to create local school boards in each of the Neighbor Island counties.
The Democratic leaders in the Legislature are prepared to change things a bit in regards to who controls funds that come into the Department of Education. They are talking about some 75 percent of the general fund budget funds being controlled by principals, a statement which when parsed means the principals will gain a bit more power, but won’t have a tremendous amount of new power. Lingle’s plan would radically change the bureaucratic control of educational funds that’s now in place, and she wants to implement it over a 36-month period.
An overview of this plan shows that the “support services” funding would be in control of the principals, as well as the funding for classroom expenditures — a 180 degree change for the status quo of today.
The governor stated in a message that went along with her new proposals that “…the public now expects us, their elected officials, to work together to arrive at a specific plan which will work, which can be implemented, and will be true reform.”
That’s a mouthful, but true.
This High Noon scenario will likely end up in a compromise that will tilt more toward the leadership in the Legislature, and go from being a hot potato in the 2004 session to a hand grenade with the pin out in the 2005 session.
The Legislature is used to stringing controversial issues out over the years to defuse them. This time while they surely won’t go along 100 percent with Lingle’s proposals, they need to make a substantial change in the setup and operations of the state Department of Education, and quick. With education at the forefront of the political mind they face dangers this fall, and need to show parents, teachers and the general public that they are serious about doing more than band aid changes.
