At the time of statehood, 84 percent of Hawai'i's elementary and secondary students attended a public school. In 2009, the percentage is — 84 percent.

The system in 1959 was the nation's ninth largest. This year it is — the ninth largest.

In his inaugural address in 1962, Gov. John Burns described public education as a top priority and said he intended to decentralize the Department of Education. The superintendent of education at that time also favored decentralization. Yet the system remained highly centralized throughout Burns' 12 years in office.

In the 1980s, Gov. John Waihee noted a need to change the "culture" of the DOE: "Nowhere is the need for a change of mindset so poignant than in the way we govern our schools." He championed School/Community-Based Management, or SCBM, to empower individual schools and help them break out of the DOE's one-size-fits-all mold. But SCBM never amounted to much, and it no longer exists.

In the 1990s, then-Lt. Gov. Benjamin Cayetano chaired a task force that favored decentralization: "The state's existing highly centralized system has distanced Hawai'i's people from their schools and has become unable to respond appropriately to the state's continually changing and developing educational needs." None of the Cayetano task force's sweeping recommendations were enacted.

Shortly after her election in 2002, Gov. Linda Lingle declared, "The time has come to move resources and decision-making away from the DOE's central office." Her plan for decentralization fell on deaf ears.

The 2004 Legislature billed its Reinventing Education Act as a decentralization plan, but it did not make fundamental changes. Indeed, five years later the "reinvented" DOE is still the most centralized school system in America.

Something else that hasn't changed much since statehood is that the DOE still has no control over funding and only shared control over spending. For more than 50 years, the Legislature has decided how much money to appropriate and has routinely mandated how some of the money must be spent (known as categorical spending, line-item budgeting, or earmarking). The governor then decides whether to release money that the Legislature has appropriated.

This odd arrangement has existed for so long that most people in Hawai'i simply take it for granted. The same observation was made 45 years ago by a Board of Education member who criticized others for "usurping" the BOE's prerogative. He wrote in a 1964 newspaper commentary, "The only reason this does not seem a major scandal, is simply that it has been going on for so long."

In the 1980s, the DOE argued in court that governor-imposed spending restrictions "destroyed or limited" its ability to operate the schools effectively. The DOE specifically objected to "the current practice of allowing uninformed budget analysts in the (state) Department of Budget and Finance to make detailed decisions in the allocation of the educational budget, and thus, for all practical purposes, formulate policy and exercise control over the public school system." The Hawai'i Supreme Court upheld the governor's authority.

The problem is one of accountability. The Burns task force pointed this out 35 years ago:

"The Legislature has the primary power of budgeting for the Department of Education and, consequently, can influence or mandate Department of Education programs, policies, directions, and activities very heavily. The governor exercises this kind of power also with his ability to (release or not to release) funds. The public, therefore, is never sure just who is responsible for a particular decision affecting the Department of Education or who is to be held accountable for its policies."

Govs. Waihee, Cayetano, and Lingle each expressed similar concerns about accountability in Hawai'i's public education system.

The time has come, as Hawai'i commemorates its 50th year of statehood, to improve the quality of educational opportunity for the keiki o ka 'aina. A good first step is to stop doing the same thing over and over.