Traveling between the Board of Education’s 2-day Board Development session at the posh Hilton Waikoloa Village resort on the Big Island of Hawaii, and a town meeting that occurred on the other side of the island in Laupahoehoe this Thursday, June 22, provided a study in contrasts as stark as the road from Hilo to the summit of Mauna Kea.

While the Board of Education convened in a ballroom and feasted on Hilton delicacies, discussing what kind of new reports they would like from the Superintendent and what their goals and priorities should be for next year, concerned Laupahoehoe citizens were asking why their 15-year-olds can’t read well enough to get their driving permits and why they don’t even know how to use a ruler.

Rep. Dwight Takamine, D-Hilo, called the Laupahoehoe town meeting Thursday night to discuss, in part, how to “stop the bleeding” of state funding, and how to retain staff positions threatened as the result of Democrat legislation passed in 2004.

Takamine helped craft the Weighted Student Formula legislation known as Act 51 or the Reinventing Education Act of 2004. The Act is supposed to distribute money to schools on a per pupil basis. But instead, the DOE has distributed only a small portion of its $2 billion budget to the state’s public schools.

Act 51 was supposed to be the “long-term solution” that fixed public education in Hawaii once and for all, according to Democrat legislators who fought Gov. Linda Lingle’s plan to decentralize the statewide school system and bring decision making closer to each community.

When Takamine was asked why the DOE’s central bureaucracy is keeping the largest part of the budget for itself, even though the law requires 70 percent of the budget to be spent by principals, Takamine could only respond with a compliment, not an answer.

He said that question was a good one and that’s why citizens need to get involved in the Committee on Weights II (COW II) to help figure out how to get more money to schools.

Lost on the parents in the audience was the fact that DOE is deliberately breaking the law – which legislators made clear in 2004 – by withholding nearly 70 percent of the budget from principals.

The Hawaii State Legislature’s solution this year to the redistribution of funding, which under the Weighted Student Formula caused less funding to go to some schools, was to increase the DOE’s budget by $20 million without cutting elsewhere, further ballooning the DOE’s $2 billion plus annual budget. (The annual budget already takes in about half of the state’s annual operating budget plus additional funds for capital expenditures).

But the DOE administrators warned this additional cash is only a one-time solution and a long-term plan is needed.

Listening to stories told by Lapahoehoe 1950’s graduates such as Lucille Chun and Larry Ignacio, it was apparent that local control over curriculum and funding would work best for their community and others like it if the DOE will just let go of its bureaucratic control and stop hoarding the money.

These public school graduates want their school to be great again. They are proud of past accomplishments; they want to restore band, shop and athletic programs.

Sadly, they didn’t realize that their own Rep. Takamine, as the House Finance Chairman and one of the most powerful lawmakers in the 76-member legislature, has the power to help their school.

He clearly has the political clout to force the DOE to comply with the law, but instead helps to retain the central DOE’s control over schools.

Ironically, Takamine’s suggestion to audience members who asked him pointed questions he chose not to answer – to get involved in the “visioning” process – distracts the community’s attention from their current dilemma of not being allowed to be involved in the hiring of a new principal as provided for under Act 51.

Valeria Takata, the Complex Area Superintendent, replaced 7 long-time community members on the 8-member principal selection committee, putting her own people on the committee and taking away local control from the council.

Community members took the issue to Superintendent Pat Hamamoto, who said she’d “get back to them,” but they have had no feedback from her on whether they will be allowed to have input on the next principal or can regain their seats.

Laupahoehoe School Community Council Chair Chris Kornet asks, “How can the DOE expect us to be accountable if we have no control?”

The law does provide for control over principal selection, funding and curriculum, but the DOE is not allowing that to occur.

Parents and community members are ready to go to battle for their children and take back their school.

When they are finally successful, those who intentionally violated the law and stole the chance of a good education from thousands of students across the state, will have many angry parents to answer to. The question is will they have any good answers? So far, the answer is no.

Laura Brown is the education reporter and researcher for HawaiiReporter.com and the education policy analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. She can be reached via email at mailto:laurabrown@hawaii.rr.com