Recent developments affecting the state Department of Education raise interesting questions. For example, the school board announced that it would not renew the current superintendent’s contract — shortly after giving her a glowing evaluation.
Why would they do that? And what was the governor’s role in its decision?
And then a private group, the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, agreed to pay for the superintendent search; changed its mind upon hearing that a specific person had applied for the position; and then changed its mind again when that person withdrew his application.
Why would a private group like Castle be paying for an obviously governmental function?
To answer these and related questions, it helps to recall a bit of history: Before 2011, three political bodies — school board, Legislature and governor — each had enough power to prevent either of the other two from achieving a singular educational vision.
Besides impeding progress, this power allocation rendered it impossible for voters to hold anyone accountable for how well or poorly the education system functioned. As a former superintendent once put it, “When everyone is in control, no one is in control.”
Since 2011, the governor appoints every school board member. So, for example, if voters do not like what is happening in the schools, they can hold Gov. David Ige accountable when he runs for re-election next year.
Schools superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi was hired by the now-defunct elected school board. She had never been a teacher or principal, but was the only candidate the board interviewed.
The Castle Foundation had enthusiastically supported Matayoshi’s candidacy, and then contributed upwards of $15 million to the DOE during her tenure.
As expected, Matayoshi strengthened the DOE’s central office and strove to standardize curriculum, instruction, assessment and evaluation in the schools.
Ige and his school board appointees have not criticized Matayoshi or Castle. Indeed, they have thanked Matayoshi for her dedication and made clear that she did an excellent job at what she was hired to do. They have also thanked Castle repeatedly for its financial assistance to the DOE over many years.
But Ige has made it clear that his educational vision is quite different. Instead of a top-down, one-size-fits-all bureaucracy (as he has described the current DOE), Ige has called for a schools- centered system in which those closest to the children play a larger role than do state-office bureaucrats in determining how best to meet the children’s needs.
In the DOE that Ige has described, workers fit into either of two categories: those who work directly with the children, and those who support the work of those who work directly with the children. More specifically, a schools-centered system requires a substantially larger share of the education budget getting to the schools, and teachers not just allowed but encouraged to take risks and be creative in meeting the needs of their students.
In addition to appointing school board members who share this educational vision, Ige formed a task force that is developing a blueprint for the transformation.
It only makes sense that Ige and his school board appointees want now to hire a superintendent who will be not just knowledgeable and talented, but a proven change agent. Also, the new superintendent must be personally committed to transforming the existing DOE into a schools-centered system of education.
Randall Roth is a professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii.
