Questions should first be asked about its budget performance

Strike one: On the very first day of 2007, Advertiser education writer Beverly Creamer reported that the "first salvoes of the 2007-09 Department of Education budget season have been fired."

For the current biennium, the governor has proposed a total of $4.657 billion taxpayer dollars be given to the Department of Education. As predictable as sunrise, DOE Communications Director Greg Knudsen responds that the governor's proposed funding levels "ignore" certain needs, including money to comply with federal requirements such as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Keep in mind this bloated organization is presiding over a spreading inkblot of schools the DOE has branded as "failing." At last count, fully two-thirds of the state's 282 public schools did not meet their adequate yearly progress assessment test-score targets established by the DOE to convince the feds that Hawai'i is in compliance with No Child Left Behind. In other words, the DOE demands more money with no questions asked as to why its managerial performance is so wretched.

As if to rub salt into the wound, James Brese, the new DOE chief financial officer, is quoted as saying: "Without money to continue improving technology in the department, there won't be the transparency everyone desires."

Strike two: One of the reasons assessment test scores remain so dismal is that the DOE steadfastly refuses to establish a common core academic curriculum. Without such a curriculum, annual standardized assessment testing is meaningless.

In a related story on the same day, Creamer reports that Niu Valley Middle School will pilot the International Baccalaureate program, a demanding curriculum involving increased academic rigor to help students meet No Child Left Behind goals. One might ask what the DOE response is to the initiative taken by this school to help students wallowing in the curricular vacuum created by DOE foot-dragging? According to Knudsen: "This is kind of what it takes — someone to instigate an interest and move it forward. It's not really suitable for every school or every community. It's something that should be left to individual schools to select and pursue."

Taxpayers should not expect the DOE to reward this initiative. Quite the contrary, because, according to Creamer, "there are still major hurdles including the need to launch a fundraising campaign to help pay for teacher training and salaries for new language teachers — state money is not allowed to be used to send teachers out of state for training."

Strike three: Over and above what the DOE is demanding in excess of the $4.657 billion now budgeted, the teachers' union is demanding that even more money be thrown down into this unaccountability hole.

One may be forgiven for wondering if it is time for the governor to renew her call for a ballot issue to let taxpayers decide if the DOE should be dismantled and replaced by local (county and sub-county) school districts. Just imagine how much schools and students might benefit if all the certified teachers in the massive DOE bureaucracy were told to return to the classroom.

That might just give our bright, capable kids a long overdue chance to hit one out of the park.

Thomas E. Stuart is a public school teacher living in Kapa'au. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.