by John McClaughry

Originally released Tuesday, January 1, 2002

What does it mean for a state to have One Big School System? For the answer to that, look at the only state that actually has one, Hawaii.

Hawaii has 273 public schools spread over seven islands. They have 190,000 students and employ 12,000 teachers. There are no county or local school boards. The system, almost twice the size of Vermont’s, is run from Oahu by the elected State Board of Education.

The state pays all education bills. There is no education property tax, local or statewide. Where all the money goes is something of a mystery. The state auditor has repeatedly criticized sloppy financial management at the Department of Education (DOE). The Department is noted for simply ignoring the financial reporting requirements established by the legislature.

Whenever a principal pleads for school repairs or more space, the state Board decides whether, when, and how much. The work is scheduled and controlled by the state Department of Accounting and General Services. (As a reform experiment, a few schools are now allowed to spend up to $10,000 to hire a local plumber to fix leaks, etc.) In 2001 there was a $640 million backlog of school repairs and maintenance.

The state superintendent (commissioner) appoints district superintendents with the approval of the state Board. The state superintendent cannot even hire and fire his own staff without Board approval. The legislature fixes the number of teachers to be hired, and where they will teach. They are state government employees, hired by the central office. They all belong to one of three labor unions. Their pay is set by statewide collective bargaining agreements.

After two years on the job, all teachers get permanent tenure. Their union contract gives teachers the right to displace teachers with less seniority anywhere in the state. Thus the most experienced teachers end up teaching the least challenged pupils in the most upscale schools.

Dr. Libby Oshiyama, now president of the Hawaii Association of Charter Schools and a 26-year veteran of working with at-risk kids in Hawaii, says “The school system is dehumanizing and insulting to children, parents, teachers and principals. A lot of that has to do with scale. Hawaii has the most hidebound, calcified and controlling system in the United States.”

Naturally, any union’s emphasis is on better pay and job security. “The teachers are willing to do everything to make sure our public schools improve, “ said teacher union spokeswoman Danielle Lum. “And if going on strike is what they have to do, then going on strike is what they will do.” “Making sure our public schools improve” translated into a 22% pay raise for teachers. And they did go on strike, statewide, in March 2001, for three weeks. Professional excellence and student achievement are scarcely on the radar screen.

Because their salary, benefits and job security depend on a contract ratified by the legislature, it is absolutely vital that the unions control the legislature. And they do. Every bill introduced to decentralize power over public schools has been summarily killed. Charter school conversion legislation was passed, but it required the charter schools to keep the former school’s union staff and their union contracts. The parents who pushed for the charter soon found that the union contract told them how to run their school. The teachers in “New Century” charter schools authorized in 2000 are still state employees, working under the same state union contract as other public schools. Even so, the state Board has thrown every conceivable roadblock into the path of charter school applicants.

By any standard, the quality of education for Hawaii’s schoolchildren is a disaster. On the NAEP math tests, for instance, Hawaii barely edges out Mississippi for last.

Honolulu Advertiser columnist Cliff Slater says “the single advantage of a statewide system is to the school unions’ leadership. They can exercise control more easily with state-centered power. They would have less control with a countywide system, even less with one that is districtwide, and little or none from an individual charter-school based system. That is why the teachers union, the principals union and the United Public Workers union fight local control all the time.”

Hawaii’s story ought to be of considerable interest to Vermonters. Unless Act 60 is thrown overboard soon, its coming fiscal crash will necessarily lead to full state financing coupled with centralized cost controls and a statewide teachers contract. Gov. Howard Dean, who can see perfectly well where Act 60 is heading, has for years been calling for spending controls on local education spending, and has endorsed the idea of a statewide teachers contract.

Fortunately, there is a way to keep Vermont from turning into One Big School System. It’s called Schoolchildren First: giving parents the money to send their children to the school of their choice. Its public school tuition certificates and tax credit-funded independent school scholarships will call forth many diverse and efficient educational providers. Competition among many providers will force complacent public schools to respond to what parents want, or else their pupils and revenue will disappear.

As A. Kam Napier, managing editor of Honolulu magazine, concluded after a powerful analysis of what’s wrong with Hawaii’s system, “Let parents choose. And let the money follow that choice, so that successful schools thrive and unsuccessful schools wither away. This is the only way to free parents and children from the tyranny of government schools and provide for the diversity of educational experiences parents and students need.”

The author is a Kirby resident and is a former aide to President Ronald Reagan, a former Vermont state senator, and is the founder and former president of the Ethan Allen Institute.