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Small Business News November 2003
Governor Lingle And Concerned Citizens Expressing excitement, hope and optimism, Governor Linda Lingle convened an inaugural citizens advisory committee to assist her administration in moving forward on true education reform in Hawaii. A diverse mix of more than 20 concerned citizens from across the state have volunteered to serve on the Governor's Citizens to Achieve Reform in Education (CARE) committee to work on education reform. The heart of CARE's efforts will focus on decentralizing Hawaii's top-heavy education system in order to give key decision-making authority to the school level, direct more money into the classrooms, and promote community involvement. "We can't keep waiting around hoping that public education in Hawaii will get better, because it's not going to just happen by itself," Governor Lingle told the committee members, who met for the first time on Wednesday. "Our CARE committee is a historic opportunity to work together on issues that will truly change education for our children. I consider this to be the most important group I have convened because it will result in life-time achievement for Hawaii's students and our entire community." CARE will work toward refining issues relating to decentralizing Hawaii's education system to give more authority and subsequently more accountability to school principals and teachers. Part of the effort will include giving the people of Hawaii the opportunity to decide on whether to have local school boards that can better meet the specific education needs of different communities. In the next few months, the CARE committee will hold community meetings to talk with concerned citizens around the state about their priorities and recommendations for public education reform. The information gathered will be used to help formulate legislation that will ultimately let the people of Hawaii decide the issue of local school boards, to replace the centralized system that has produced dismal results for many years. "Our plan is to take our collective ideas and messages out to the people to show them how their children can benefit from a decentralized school system," said Stan Kawaguchi, who will chair the CARE committee. "Some people will always resist change because they fear the unknown. That's why it's important to launch a public information campaign to show people that local decision-making can result in more effective management of our schools, more autonomy and flexibility for teachers and principals, as well as more money going directly to the classrooms rather than an administrative office." While the CARE committee plans to reach out to parents directly, members also hope to gain the support of teachers and principals, some of whom are represented on the committee. Supporting the committee's ideas toward decentralization was University of California at Los Angeles professor Bill Ouchi, who is in Honolulu to meet with local education officials, legislators, and business groups. Ouchi, a former Hawaii resident who is serving as an unpaid education consultant to the CARE committee, told members about his research which shows that school education performance is directly affected by how education systems are structured. The key is to empower each school community, especially the principal, and build in a system of accountability in terms of each school's budget performance, student performance, and customer satisfaction.
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