It's your ConCon. What do you want to do with it? Learn - Discuss - Decide
Successful School Restructuring (I’m about to rain on some parades, so apologies in advance…)
A five-year study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers found that structural school reform works only under certain conditions:
1. Students must be engaged in activities that build on prior knowledge and allow them to apply that knowledge to new situations.
2. Students must use disciplined inquiry.
3. School activities must have value beyond school.
In their report, "Successful School Restructuring," the researchers at Wisconsin's Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools found that even innovative school improvements, such as portfolio assessment and shared decision making, are less effective without accompanying meaningful student assignments based on deep inquiry. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1,500 elementary, middle, and high schools and conducted field studies in forty-four schools in sixteen states between 1990 and 1995. (Source: Edutopia—George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2001)
In other words:
1) Reform must be student centered, and involve applied knowledge (projects).
2) Reform must be student centered, and use guided inquiry (open-ended, long-term projects).
3) Reform must be student centered in the context of their families, communities and personal interests (place-based, real-world projects).
Nowhere is it indicated that kids’ problems can be solved by reorganizing adults’ problems. A business that ignores its clients’ needs doesn’t survive unless it is a monopoly.
I really believe deeply and strongly that if you want to change education, you can’t just set up multiple districts and hope for autonomy to be a panacea—more importantly you also have to sanction and guide curricular change within the whole stakeholder community.
Machiavelli tells us why (and you tell me if he wasn’t a time traveler describing our DOE 500 years ago):
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this luke warmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it."
This very “incredulity of mankind” is why you cannot just wipe away the BOE, and then cut loose 15 or 42 or however many new districts without first considering curricular models that demonstrate how they might make good use of their autonomy right away.
With luck and visionary leadership, such models toward change may eventually arise spontaneously if districts first set up innovative curricular experiments. Then again, a newly constituted, autonomous district tasked with reinventing the proverbial (curricular) wheel WHILE ALSO managing autonomous governance structures may likely hobble along for a while on its remaining familiar structures before entropy finally sets in.
In the context of Hawaii’s education milieu, one should really take a serious look at charter schools. Although none are perfect, many are highly effective in both pedagogy and governance methods. Many are quite instructive as R&D initiatives that can be replicated in each and every district. Several charter schools are just flat out better than a majority of their DOE peers by any practical measure you care to apply.
Before I go further, I have to say this: Hawaii charter schools are NOT for-profit operations, NOR a bridge to vouchers, NOR a means for religious schools to get public money. Nor are they a threat to the DOE. Those who benefit from preserving the status quo spout obtuse and disingenuous shibai like this about charters all the time. I wish they would simply stop.
Hawaii charters are in fact quite unlike their mainland counterparts. Here in the middle of the sea, they are the very embodiment of democratic grass roots reform, and are among the most successful innovation initiatives occurring in our state government today. Period.
Charters complement DOE programs, providing innovative service to underserved segments of the taxpaying public. They account for 2.4% of public education dollars, yet educate 4.6% of public school children.
Consider: My main concern is that the DOE system itself cannot simply be overturned and reinvented. The energy required to make wholesale changes to a large system is normally what dooms initiatives to failure. The sentiment of simply breaking it apart into a scattering of smaller school districts is just not going to work. I’m sorry if you disagree, but me and Machiavelli are on the same page here.
We do all agree that in order to bring meaningful change to education, community stakeholders need to have meaningful say, so let’s start there. The Constitution already appears to support the notion of grass root initiatives like place-based, community-run schools and/or community focused academies via Article X, Section 4 (“The State shall promote the study of Hawaiian culture, history and language.”). It is clearly implicit to me that this means within every complex there is room for Hawaiian-focused programs in the DOE. In that absence, and where demand dictated, charter schools have arisen.
With that said, I think the DOE should be changed via external forces—market forces, if you will. Change must come from the outside incrementally by setting up autonomous programs with the potential to prove they are effective, and then be used as models to modify the larger system. This is exactly what the Hawaii charter school movement is doing right now. In concept they are kindred spirits with the Castle High School Theatre, established via Ron Bright’s genius and honest sweat. In practice they are akin to Waverider Productions, which took much political will and community support to establish. These and charters are exactly the type of inroads toward Machiavelli’s “incredulity of mankind” that must be encouraged by the tools of government.
A constitutional change that supports such initiatives, both from the DOE side and the community based charter school side, is the most effective avenue toward permanent change.
I think of public transportation as a fair allegory of the DOE/BOE bureaucracy—perhaps very much like an old style locomotive chugging along. The BOE holds as much control as the guy who yells, “All aboard!”, and takes tickets from passengers. No one really thinks he’s in charge of the whole operation, except maybe him. But he CAN hold up the whole rig capriciously if he so chooses.
A Con Con certainly can make meaningful changes without attempting a wholesale gut-and-retrofit.
1. The way the BOE is assembled, and their self-serving nature are big problems that can be fixed by creating an appointed body that puts accountability squarely at the feet of the Governor
2. Its status as exclusive overseer of all public education can also be set aside to make room for unmolested competition from charter schools or other autonomous education initiatives. Big Business allows their R&D to operate unfettered by the engineers and bean-counters over at the main plant—this seems a sound approach for education as well. Let charters, magnet schools, et cetera create reform models for the rest of the system.
The BOE is ineffectual at initiating change. The Governor is insulated from initiating broad education policy. The legislature is often misguided by special interests. The Bureaucracy is resistant. And the Superintendent, beholden to the BOE, is not particularly tasked with revolution and transformation, even amid crisis.
A simple increase in accountability at the top is the way to go. Preserve the state BOE as a body, but place it squarely under the Executive Branch. If schools are junk, the Governor and appointees are directly answerable.
There is indeed room for the idea of locally elected boards of education within the districts, in fact, I totally agree with that as a part of what needs to happen. It preserves voters’ choice, and would serve to greatly enhance local control, while still retaining statewide oversight.
1. Students must be engaged in activities that build on prior knowledge and allow them to apply that knowledge to new situations.
2. Students must use disciplined inquiry.
3. School activities must have value beyond school.
In their report, "Successful School Restructuring," the researchers at Wisconsin's Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools found that even innovative school improvements, such as portfolio assessment and shared decision making, are less effective without accompanying meaningful student assignments based on deep inquiry. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1,500 elementary, middle, and high schools and conducted field studies in forty-four schools in sixteen states between 1990 and 1995. (Source: Edutopia—George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2001)
In other words:
1) Reform must be student centered, and involve applied knowledge (projects).
2) Reform must be student centered, and use guided inquiry (open-ended, long-term projects).
3) Reform must be student centered in the context of their families, communities and personal interests (place-based, real-world projects).
Nowhere is it indicated that kids’ problems can be solved by reorganizing adults’ problems. A business that ignores its clients’ needs doesn’t survive unless it is a monopoly.
I really believe deeply and strongly that if you want to change education, you can’t just set up multiple districts and hope for autonomy to be a panacea—more importantly you also have to sanction and guide curricular change within the whole stakeholder community.
Machiavelli tells us why (and you tell me if he wasn’t a time traveler describing our DOE 500 years ago):
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this luke warmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it."
This very “incredulity of mankind” is why you cannot just wipe away the BOE, and then cut loose 15 or 42 or however many new districts without first considering curricular models that demonstrate how they might make good use of their autonomy right away.
With luck and visionary leadership, such models toward change may eventually arise spontaneously if districts first set up innovative curricular experiments. Then again, a newly constituted, autonomous district tasked with reinventing the proverbial (curricular) wheel WHILE ALSO managing autonomous governance structures may likely hobble along for a while on its remaining familiar structures before entropy finally sets in.
In the context of Hawaii’s education milieu, one should really take a serious look at charter schools. Although none are perfect, many are highly effective in both pedagogy and governance methods. Many are quite instructive as R&D initiatives that can be replicated in each and every district. Several charter schools are just flat out better than a majority of their DOE peers by any practical measure you care to apply.
Before I go further, I have to say this: Hawaii charter schools are NOT for-profit operations, NOR a bridge to vouchers, NOR a means for religious schools to get public money. Nor are they a threat to the DOE. Those who benefit from preserving the status quo spout obtuse and disingenuous shibai like this about charters all the time. I wish they would simply stop.
Hawaii charters are in fact quite unlike their mainland counterparts. Here in the middle of the sea, they are the very embodiment of democratic grass roots reform, and are among the most successful innovation initiatives occurring in our state government today. Period.
Charters complement DOE programs, providing innovative service to underserved segments of the taxpaying public. They account for 2.4% of public education dollars, yet educate 4.6% of public school children.
Consider: My main concern is that the DOE system itself cannot simply be overturned and reinvented. The energy required to make wholesale changes to a large system is normally what dooms initiatives to failure. The sentiment of simply breaking it apart into a scattering of smaller school districts is just not going to work. I’m sorry if you disagree, but me and Machiavelli are on the same page here.
We do all agree that in order to bring meaningful change to education, community stakeholders need to have meaningful say, so let’s start there. The Constitution already appears to support the notion of grass root initiatives like place-based, community-run schools and/or community focused academies via Article X, Section 4 (“The State shall promote the study of Hawaiian culture, history and language.”). It is clearly implicit to me that this means within every complex there is room for Hawaiian-focused programs in the DOE. In that absence, and where demand dictated, charter schools have arisen.
With that said, I think the DOE should be changed via external forces—market forces, if you will. Change must come from the outside incrementally by setting up autonomous programs with the potential to prove they are effective, and then be used as models to modify the larger system. This is exactly what the Hawaii charter school movement is doing right now. In concept they are kindred spirits with the Castle High School Theatre, established via Ron Bright’s genius and honest sweat. In practice they are akin to Waverider Productions, which took much political will and community support to establish. These and charters are exactly the type of inroads toward Machiavelli’s “incredulity of mankind” that must be encouraged by the tools of government.
A constitutional change that supports such initiatives, both from the DOE side and the community based charter school side, is the most effective avenue toward permanent change.
I think of public transportation as a fair allegory of the DOE/BOE bureaucracy—perhaps very much like an old style locomotive chugging along. The BOE holds as much control as the guy who yells, “All aboard!”, and takes tickets from passengers. No one really thinks he’s in charge of the whole operation, except maybe him. But he CAN hold up the whole rig capriciously if he so chooses.
A Con Con certainly can make meaningful changes without attempting a wholesale gut-and-retrofit.
1. The way the BOE is assembled, and their self-serving nature are big problems that can be fixed by creating an appointed body that puts accountability squarely at the feet of the Governor
2. Its status as exclusive overseer of all public education can also be set aside to make room for unmolested competition from charter schools or other autonomous education initiatives. Big Business allows their R&D to operate unfettered by the engineers and bean-counters over at the main plant—this seems a sound approach for education as well. Let charters, magnet schools, et cetera create reform models for the rest of the system.
The BOE is ineffectual at initiating change. The Governor is insulated from initiating broad education policy. The legislature is often misguided by special interests. The Bureaucracy is resistant. And the Superintendent, beholden to the BOE, is not particularly tasked with revolution and transformation, even amid crisis.
A simple increase in accountability at the top is the way to go. Preserve the state BOE as a body, but place it squarely under the Executive Branch. If schools are junk, the Governor and appointees are directly answerable.
There is indeed room for the idea of locally elected boards of education within the districts, in fact, I totally agree with that as a part of what needs to happen. It preserves voters’ choice, and would serve to greatly enhance local control, while still retaining statewide oversight.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by jk on -
Hi Curtis:
Thank you for your insightful comments.
I agree that changing the organizational structure of Hawaii’s public education system will not guarantee success. However, that is all that is possible within the context of a Constitutional amendment. Decentralization can only go so far as to create conditions that enable success by empowering people at the community level to control their schools. The people have to do the rest.
All of the results of successful education reform that you cited (learning that is student centered, involves guided inquiry, and is set within the context of families and communities, etc.) are much more likely to be realized if communities are given the responsibility and authority for their own schools.
As you say, a business that ignores its clients’ needs doesn’t survive unless it is a monopoly. And what we have in the form of the DOE is a monopoly that ignores its clients’ needs. The structure has to be changed in order to eliminate the monopoly.
The concept of having communities involved with their schools is similar to your concept that external forces should play a greater role in shaping public education. Under the existing system the bureaucracy is so large and subject to so much inertia that it resists nearly all external forces. In addition, the bureaucracy feels that it has to make decisions, and lots of them. Otherwise it will reveal that it is expendable. As a result, external forces are rendered powerless, or nearly so.
I agree with your quote of Machiavelli about the difficulty of creating a new order. But he didn’t say it was impossible. The fact is that reform does occur, although infrequently. For example, public education reform efforts have been successful recently in New York City and New Orleans. In Hawaii the greatest barrier to education reform in Hawaii is Machiavelli’s “incredulity of mankind,” in my opinion. That barrier will be overcome only when the people get exasperated with continued low test scores, the ad nauseum excuses from public school leaders, and so-called reform efforts that happen from time to time that have no measurable results. Only when that exasperation reaches a tipping point will the people be willing to try something new. Maybe that won’t happen in 2008. Maybe it won’t be until 2018. Or maybe even 2028. But every year that goes by means that 15,000 children become new victims of Hawaii’s failed education system.
I agree with you about the overall success of charter schools. However, I think you are mistaken about who is saying that charter schools are a threat to the DOE. Those people aren’t the apologists for the DOE, but charter school supporters. If charter school enrollments grow substantially, regular school enrollments must necessarily shrink by the same amount. That would show that parents increasingly favor charter schools, indicating the failure of the DOE. It would be a public relations failure if the DOE says they oppose charter schools. So the DOE underfunds charter schools, as you note, in the hope that they will fail. The DOE has thrown many more roadblocks in front of charter schools for that same purpose. Unfortunately, the DOE has made charter schools the object of politics at its lowest level.
Your idea of an appointed BOE was already tried in Hawaii. Prior to 1964, the BOE was appointed by the Governor. In that year the electorate approved a Constitutional amendment changing the appointed BOE to an elected one. The reason was that many people felt that the Governor was appointing his cronies who didn’t know much about education. But the Governor had been re-elected because he did things in other areas that made him popular.
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Permalink Reply by jk on
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(continuation)
I don’t think anyone at that time foresaw that the bureaucracy would grow to be so large and powerful that it would render the BOE virtually powerless, as you note. I don’t think we should go back to an appointed BOE because we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If we’re going to make a mistake, let’s at least make a new one.
Finally, I don’t think there will be any long term change that begins with an incremental first step in the Constitution, hoping that further change will be continued by the Legislature or some other government entity. Remember that Machiavelli says that there are those who profit by the old order. Instead of continuing a change started by a Constitutional amendment, those who profit by the old order will do all that is within their power to return to it, or something as close to it as possible. Any lasting change will be the result of a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution that makes it impossible to return to the old order.
jk
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Permalink Reply by Curtis Muraoka on -
Thanks jk
I think the world was a much different place in 1964, and just because a Gov appointed BOE was changed then may not be profitable grist for a decision 45 years later. Hawaii's population was about 650,000 which is about half what it is today.
I challenge you to find a traditional Hawaii school that is operating under fundamentally different paradigms today compared to 1964 (my point being, the voter chosen BOE has not changed meaningfully--and maybe even mucked it up more by failing to keep up with changing times).
I know personally that the threats don't come out of charter schools. They come directly from the horse's mouth (BOE). In the February Legislative Committee meeting, Mr. Penebacker stated (more than once) that "charter schools are a direct threat to public schools". There was tacit agreement all around. Mr. Harimoto expressed his intentions to bring charter schools back under the control of the BOE. They appear to think charters are errant children in need of discipline, lest they turn into delinquents running with scissors through the halls of academia.
Truly, charter school folks are NOT trying to pull the rug out from under anyone. How can such small potatoes be a threat to such a large cornucopia-like buffet? The CS budget for next year is less than $58million, and compared to the DOE's $2.4+BILLION budget accounts for 2.4% of education dollars to serve 4.6% of the public school total enrollment. Last year's DOE surplus alone could fund 3/4 of the whole charter school system.
I will peruse your reply further and give a more detailed counterpoint later. Gotta go cut the grass.
Curtis
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Permalink Reply by jk on
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Hi Curtis:
Thank you for informing me that Mr. Penebacker made a public statement that charter schools pose a threat to the DOE. Charter schools can be a threat only if they are better than regular DOE schools. If they aren’t better, parents wouldn’t choose them for their children, and they would simply die of natural causes. So it is interesting that you say that Mr. Harimoto wants to bring them under the control of the DOE. That would be tantamount to educational homicide – or at least manslaughter. And it seems that the DOE has an accomplice in the form of the Legislature, which could have easily increased charter school funding to accommodate the unanticipated increase in charter school enrollment. Instead, the Legislature kept the funding level the same as in the Governor’s budget, which was necessarily developed months earlier and based on old enrollment projections. Although it is the Legislature’s responsibility to revise the Governor’s budget, if necessary, and finalize it, the Legislature refused to increase charter school funding. One Legislator even blamed the Governor for underfunding charter schools.
Regarding the issue of elected vs. appointed BOE, I am opposed to both of them because both have failed. The reason that selection does not matter is that the real problem is the large centralized organization that is the DOE. Amidst the change in the way the BOE is selected, changes in Superintendents in the last 30 years or so, turnover in the BOE, various reform efforts over the years, student performance continues to stagnate. The constant has been the large centralized organization. If anyone thinks that the DOE can be fixed by amending the Constitution, then hoping for the best, I would like to be able to bottle their optimism and sell it. The DOE cannot be fixed. It should be dissolved and replaced with a decentralized structure.
jk
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Permalink Reply by Curtis Muraoka on
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jk
You are certainly more well informed than most about Hawaii charter school issues, and about education in general.
The comments by Messrs. Penebacker and Harimoto were widely circulated among the charter school community via a BOE podcast (which is much more accurate as public record than BOE minutes, as you probably know).
Your statement about the Legislature shuffling off blaming to the Gov for the brutal 12% slash in charter school funding base is also spot on, except your implication that only one policymaker blamed the 5th floor. It was actually BOTH money committee Chairs who publicly and privately asserted the position of "tell it to the Governor--it's HER budget". Both Chairs were disinclined to exercise any responsibility toward supporting children enrolled in charter schools, and went so far as to call the DOE's budget a 4% cut to justify lack of action. It is actually more like a .04% shortfall ($7.7million)--BIG DIFFERENCE.
As we obviously have substantive common ground, shall we focus on modified BOE v. deleted BOE?
For my perspective, I go back to Machiavelli. Chopping off the head, while I agree wholly on your desired outcome, I disagree that such a big change is winnable. Here are the obstacles:
1) The unions, and HSTA in particular, have a convenient conduit toward their goals via the statewide system. Any system wide break up will upset the rank and file, and not therefore be well received by the public.
2) It is conventional wisdom that the statewide system saves money via consolidation of services. Even if you succeed in parsing out the districts, there will still be the beast of consolidating essential services that all districts can share.
Consider the example of Ma Bell being broken up into a bunch of Baby Bells. Your model would be like that, except without the benefit of motivating market forces, at least for a time. Meanwhile, the students and families will suffer even more disruptions in service.
You mentioned bottling optimism, but I think it is your faith in the ability of sheep to immediately learn to lead themselves that should be bottled :^)
I point to the difficulty in establishing working democracy in emerging nations. If the populace is not educated, and is used to being told what to do, you end up with dictatorships in the interim, and fragile democracy takes generations to establish itself, if ever.
I advocate for a peaceful revolution to originate with charter schools IN CONTEXT of a statewide system.
All that takes is small but meaningful modification of the BOE constitutional element.
1) Permanently put the BOE out of the charter school business by solidifying the separation that now exists under the Charter School Review Panel. Allow the CSRP to authorize additional authorizers, like UH-Manoa (it worked with Ed Lab even before charters existed anywhere)
2) Solidify the language regarding Hawaiian Education to include specific support for placed-based education, i.e. charters
3) Specify equitable support for all public schools regardless of governance model (i.e. WSF without DOE style budget practices)
I favor a full-time, salaried BOE. In defense of the current BOE, they are hamstrung by Chapter 92, and the Noah's Ark approach (2 of everything) to boards looks nice on paper, but in practice a small assemblage is always more agile.
The districts should totally have elected seats, but there still needs to be a statewide umbrella. As long as the DOE is addicted to Federal Title I-X dollars, a State Education Agency is needed. Having just LEAs presents a major Pandora's Box.
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Permalink Reply by jk on
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Hi Curtis:
I admire and respect the historical role of unions. They played a critical role in the development of modern Hawaii. In the formative years of the Hawaii’s unions, they worked to improve public education because it provided the means for any child, no matter what their social or economic background, to achieve success. But my respect for unions declined considerably in recent years because they have opposed what I consider to have been efforts to improve the quality of public education.
Unions were once very powerful. It was not long ago that when a candidate for political office received the endorsement of unions, the outcome of the election would be a foregone conclusion. Today, however, union endorsement doesn’t mean much. I haven’t kept count of winners and losers in recent elections, but union endorsement may give a candidate only a slight advantage. Union members don’t automatically follow their leaders anymore.
Union leadership (HSTA and HGEA) wants to maintain a statewide system because it makes it easy for them to negotiate employment contracts. But from an education perspective, I don’t think there are any benefits of a statewide contract because it predetermines what all schools can do, so it limits creativity and innovation.
Multiple districts means the unions would have to negotiate multiple times, so unions don’t like them. But district contracts have educational benefits. For example, consider for a moment that a school district wants to have an online component to certain high school classes, and the district wants to have teachers available online during evenings to answer questions. The statewide contract would not allow that to happen because the contract sets work hours. The district might be able to negotiate an amendment to the statewide contract, but I imagine it would be difficult to get HSTA to agree.
District contracts also have the benefit of putting an end to the drift of experienced teachers from rural to urban schools. Under the current statewide contract, new teachers who live in Honolulu are willing to work in Waianae, for example, for a few years until they get enough seniority to transfer to Honolulu, nearer to where they live. As a result, rural schools tend to have a disproportionately high number of new teachers. District contracts would keep all teachers in that district.
You support the expansion of charter schools, and I do too. You may have a better handle of how unions would react to a Constitutional amendment allowing for the increase in the number of charter schools, but I don’t think they would take it well. My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that each charter school negotiates separately with the unions. So I think that unions may oppose the expansion of charter schools even more than the creation of independent districts because there could be lots more charter schools than districts. If unions are going to oppose a Constitutional amendment that expands charter schools, they might as well oppose independent school districts too.
Regarding the consolidation of services, it’s only an assumption that consolidation leads to lower costs. The consolidation issue was recently studied by Arkansas, I believe, which found there are no economies of scale after a district reaches 1,000 students. I was surprised that it was such a small number, but the study was based on empirical data.
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Permalink Reply by jk on
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(continuation)
Also, there’s an actual example in the DOE where consolidation did not work. The DOE used to have a centralized storeroom, which purchased school supplies in bulk and was supposed to get these supplies to teachers and schools at low prices. It’s a classic example of consolidation. Storeroom managers said they were offering prices that were lower than anywhere else in Hawaii. Then an audit was done on the storeroom. The audit revealed massive waste, citing examples of supplies that never reached teachers and instead rotted or were eaten by insects. As a result, the storeroom was shut down and replaced with a decentralized system that is more convenient. Schools and teachers now have an easier time getting supplies, they can buy them locally as they are needed, and they don't have to wait for shipment by barge. So it can’t be assumed that consolidation is effective.
However, I grudgingly admit that there may be a few functions that should be done on a statewide level. These functions would be purely administrative in nature. One of them might be receiving federal funds and distributing them. Another function could be the determination of a formula by which to distribute funds in order to ensure equitable funding. These few functions could easily be done by a small administrative unit. An elected BOE with the authority to formulate education policy is not needed.
I’m glad you agree that the districts should be governed by an elected board. But having a statewide BOE with the authority to formulate education policy would unnecessarily confuse accountability. Voters in any particular district should be able to control their own schools, as they can with a district board. They should not have to rely on voters in other districts, which they would have to do with a statewide BOE that formulates education policy.
jk
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Permalink Reply by Curtis Muraoka on
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Aloha Jimmy:
I totally agree with you here: "Our challenge for the 21st Century is to find the words that will amend the State Constitution in making successful school restructuring take place today, now."
My experience is that the main hindrance facing innovation via public charter schools has been the BOE. As long as the BOE is the sole vehicle of oversight, the BOE will try to control all initiatives.
For example, this session, a beneficial charter school omnibus package was killed off because of objections by the charter school review panel and members of the Hawaii Charter Schools Network based on language unilaterally inserted by one BOE member.
If education initiatives can be put at arms length from the central bureaucracy, student centered reform has a better chance.
I guess I'm advocating for a close in surgical strike against the status quo, rather than a "nuke from orbit" approach.
That's why I'm a doubter of approaches that take out the statewide BOE. You have to contend with too much, and the entrenched and esconced powers (unions) will not give way.
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Permalink Reply by Dan L. on -
Hi Curtis,
(Replying to your original post.) Hooray! Hooray! This is very well-said. School reform will not just happen, regardless of what structure is put in place. For schools to improve, students must improve. And for students to improve, conditions must be designed for them, not for their parents, their teachers, their administrators, or their politicians. The problem we have now is that the students' concerns and interests are generally last on the list unless they happen to coincide with the desires of one of the above groups.
As you say, the arguments for decentralizing the DOE bureaucracy remain valid. The more local the control is, the closer to the action, the greater the ability to bend it in new directions. I have worked in both large and small schools, and the ability to change things in a small school is vastly greater than in a large one. I believe the same to be true for school systems.
Your comments on charter schools are very interesting. The almost obsessive dislike of charter schools by the DOE is truly amazing, and totally inexplicable if they honestly want to improve learning. It is the fear of loss of control, and of change in general, which motivates the DOE's opposition, in my view.
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Permalink Reply by Dan L. on
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Regarding state vs. local control, I believe that a balance is needed. There will be state laws regarding currriculum, various management issues, funding formulae, etc., and that is as it should be. A statewide salary schedule can work, too, especially if an equitable formula can be devised to take into account widely variant living conditions and costs in various communities. There must be a statewide DOE to oversee and manage these items, and there should be a BOE to give direction to DOE. In my view, that state-wide BOE should be elected, as educational interests rather than gubernatorial political ones should dominate such races. This in no way conflicts with or reduces the need for elected local school boards.
I understand HSTA's reluctance to set up bargaining units all over the state, though it works very well in every other state which has real bargaining by teachers. This way, there only needs to be one set of trained negotiators, while with separate districts HSTA will have to train a whole lot of bargainers. But it can be done, and very effectively. Indeed, many bargaining units means many different approaches, and the units can learn from each other -- just as they do in other states.
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Permalink Reply by Dan L. on
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Re competition, charter schools, and what's "public."
The value of competition in improving a product has been mentioned here more than once, with the clear implication that the monopoly status of the public schools makes it very difficult to improve them. That is the main reason why defenders of the status quo find the charter schools so very threatening. Charter schools do indeed provide competition for the regular program, and thus may indeed force change. If you're in love with the status quo, that's a terrible threat.
Let's get some terminology straight. By calling the regular program the "public schools," and not allowing that label to apply to charter schools, a subtle bias is introduced which suggests that charter schools are elitist and out of the main stream. It also fosters confusion regarding vouchers, private schools, church-affiliated schools, etc.
In realilty, all publicly-funded schools are public schools. Charter schools differ from traditional public schools; but they are publicly funded, open to all students who meet the entrance criteria, staffed by teachers paid under the state salary schedule, etc. We should talk about regular-program vs. charter schools, not public vs. charter schools.
Expansion of the charter school program, with equality of funding (which probably ought to be built into the constitution), can provide meaningful competition for the regular program, which in turn will force the regular program to address some needs which it can currently ignore.
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Permalink Reply by jk on
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Aloha Dan L.,
I agree with you that in order for students to improve, conditions must be designed for them. However, a Constitutional amendment is limited to changing the structure of public education. (The Constitution is the most general State law. Statutes contain more specifics, and administrative rules even more.) Therefore, the Constitutional amendment must create a structure for public education that enables and fosters improvements in conditions that will improve student performance.
I also agree with you that decentralization needs to occur. But I don’t agree with you about the need for a statewide BOE. Perhaps a statewide agency is needed for certain narrow administrative functions, such as figuring out a funding formula and receiving and distributing federal funds. However, the retention of a statewide BOE with the power to formulate statewide education policy threatens decentralization. If the BOE has unlimited power to formulate statewide education policy (which it has now), the BOE will surely exercise it way beyond what is necessary or beneficial (as it is doing now).
I also agree with you that charter schools should be referred to as “public charter schools” or something like that.
jk
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