We knew our 2005-2007 education budget would be more than $2 billion per year.

We knew we were not dividing funds fairly between the schools.

We knew that our budget was a mess. Our own audit told us that one in three programs overlap, that one in three don't monitor effectiveness and that many are duplicative.

We agreed that the best plan was the one Hawai'i has been talking about for 30 years: Set clear standards; give principals and schools real control over operating funds and programs; hold principals accountable for student achievement.

We knew that before we could give schools real control, we would have to release money from hundreds of budget line items and let the schools choose the programs that work best for their unique mix of students.

We knew this change would be hard on adults, especially adults in programs run out of the central DOE. But, ultimately, decentralization was best for the kids.

And now the board is backing away from the promise.

They watered down weighted student funding. But what is worse, they voted to support a system that keeps control in the central office.

They tell you principals will "expend" 72 percent of the DOE budget. But principals will have "nondiscretionary control" over the majority of those funds.

What exactly does "nondiscretionary control" mean? It means schools will be given funds and directed to hire the positions the DOE, board or Legislature mandates them to hire; they will also be given dozens of line-item budgets and told they cannot spend the money on anything other than those DOE, board or legislative programs.

In short, it means that principals and schools will have to spend the money exactly how the central DOE, board and Legislature tells them to, with no or extremely limited choice. The only difference is now the principals will have the added paperwork to fill out, to show that Act 51 is "working" and the schools are "expending" the money.

It was clear to me in April that this Board of Education does not have the strength to make the hard changes necessary to implement real reform or the collective attention or understanding to oversee the complicated transition to a truly decentralized and responsible system.

This is one of the reasons why I resigned from the Board of Education.

It was also clear to me in the 2004 session that the majority in the Legislature lacked the strength to mandate real decentralization over money and programs. Despite numerous pleas, the majority deliberately left the loophole in the law that permits "nondiscretionary control" to masquerade as decentralization.

This is the main reason why I did not support Act 51.

After all the hoopla, it appears that Act 51 will create a system that begins to hold principals accountable for student achievement, but does not give them any more control over their budgets or their programs than they've had for the past decade.

After 30 years of promises, the only thing the board, the DOE and the Legislature have managed to decentralize is accountability.

The legislative majority compromised on real reform. Now that we see the results, can we please not wait another 10 years to fix it? The majority has to be willing to place the interests of students over the interests of adults. What is even harder is they must be willing to let go of how those changes are decided. The governor is willing to let the people in the schools make those choices. Democratic Party, are you?

Laura H. Thielen is director of the state Office of Planning and a former Board of Education member. She wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.