• Education reform Education reform Much is being made this week of adding more full-time school teachers to public-school classrooms in grades kindergarten through three. The concept is to reduce class size in the early grades from a maximum of
• Education reform
Education reform
Much is being made this week of adding more full-time school teachers to public-school classrooms in grades kindergarten through three. The concept is to reduce class size in the early grades from a maximum of about 26 to 20, thus giving young students a “head start,” a term which we’ve heard before.
According to a press release from state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau, there have been seven new teachers added to Kaua‘i’s rolls since a $2-million-plus bill was passed earlier this year. The bill funds over 70 new full-time teaching positions, and was approved after Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed the bill.
Lingle’s stand is for deeper educational reform, while the Democratic majority in the Legislature is siding with the public-school administration and union leaders in keeping the status quo, and improving the existing system.
All of this comes on top of the federal “No Child Left Behind” act, which was preceded by the Felix special education legislation that added a number of teachers to Kaua‘i’s public schools, as well as statewide.
At the heart of public education is this ever-growing number of federal and state mandates that have added an amazing amount of bureaucracy to running our schools, while adding ways to gauge the progress of students, and the progress of reforms. In theory, and in practice, the addition of new teachers to the schools should be a positive change, and will likely fulfill the aims of the educators and legislators behind it. This reform took a different track from that proposed by our governor, which would have given more home rule to the counties of Hawai‘i, and more local control to parents, with local school boards in each county, rather than our statewide school board, which is the only statewide board in the nation.
Local school boards generally follow the lead of Mainland county governments for funding. Some say this creates an inequity, as wealthy areas with large tax bases in theory would have better schools, while poorer districts might suffer from lack of a strong tax base.
The bottom line on this could be the annual “report card” published by Honolulu magazine that rates our public schools just like tests are rated — with A’s through F’s. A look at this special issue of the magazine from earlier this year shows a handful of schools on Kaua‘i, mostly on the North Shore and at the elementary level — performing well, while our secondary schools get abysmal grades and caustic comments from the reviewers. The net result of the $2-million-plus now being spent will show up in these ratings in a few years, either in the form of improvements, hopefully, or in the form of a non-event with no dramatic change in the quality of our schools.
Separating education from politics when we have a statewide system is a hard task that could much better be accomplished with local school boards. Raising large amounts of state tax dollars courtesy of the Legislature might end if we had local school boards. These conflicting statements are ones we need to carefully look at as voters in the coming general election. Parents and teachers are advised to listen closely at the meetings coming up this week to see what they think and feel about the future of education on Kaua‘i. Our future depends on it.
