Gov. David Ige contends that Hawaii can outperform its peers as one of the country’s top public education systems within the next decade under strategies contained in an “education blueprint” the governor helped craft.

The plan envisions a school system that better prepares students for an innovation-driven economy and better supports teachers while empowering school leaders and targeting resources at the school level.

“I’ve always believed that our public schools can only achieve greatness if we take responsibility for them,” Ige said in an interview in his office at the state Capitol. “It’s not going to be somebody, especially at the federal level, deciding what we need to do in order to improve our schools.”

Improving the state’s public schools has been an ongoing endeavor throughout his 30 years at the Legislature, where he served as education chairman in both the House and Senate. Now, as governor, Ige has set out to make education reform a hallmark of his first term in office.

After selecting a group of 19 voluntary advisers in the spring, the governor called for a blueprint to guide a revamping of the state’s public school system to improve results for students.

The governor’s team — made up of educators, principals, community leaders, lawmakers and business executives — assembled a plan after months of gathering public input through an all-day education summit followed by town-hall meetings and community forums across the state.

The blueprint, which will be presented Tuesday to the Board of Education, identifies broad goals, including efforts to foster and support innovation in schools; empower school leaders with resources and decision-making authority; expand public early-childhood education; and elevate the teaching profession through improved working conditions.

Ige said the results exceeded his expectations.

“I’m proud of the work. It does capture, I think, the essence, the notion that it is about empowerment; it’s about innovation; it’s about investing in people, our educators, the teachers, the principals; and trusting those closest to the children to make the most important decisions,” he said.

He’s also pledging resources to support his blueprint: the governor plans to include a request in his budget for $10 million in each of the next two years to support implementation of strategies.

“The $20 million … is kind of ensuring that there are funds if, through the innovation process, through the blueprint, there are ideas that surface that we would be able to move forward with them,” he said.

Ige credited the task group for “giving voice to every idea and every person who came to participate and share.” Despite that tall order, retired Principal Darrel Galera, whom Ige tapped to lead his blueprint team, said much of the public input fell along similar themes.

“Once it was clear what the vision was — the governor’s vision that this is not about improving test scores by so many percentage points but about Hawaii should have the nation’s top-performing school system — once the community members heard that vision, the input and the feedback was surprisingly consistent,” said Galera, who Ige has since appointed to the BOE.

“They knew we weren’t asking for a gripe session,” Galera added. “They actually gave us their best thinking. So the themes that emerged were consistent at every meeting: We have to fix the (standardized) testing, we have to support teachers, we have to support our kids better. It came out loud and clear.”

Ige has appointed all but one of the nine voting members on the Board of Education, which sets statewide education policy. The governor said he doesn’t view his plan as in competition or at odds with the Department of Education’s recently completed strategic plan. He instead sees it as complementary.

“The board is very focused on assuring that the strategic plan is aligned and consistent with the blueprint,” Ige said. “Our view is that the blueprint is the long-term plan, like 10, 15 years. And the strategic plan is this year moving forward.”

Both plans will be carried out by a new schools chief. The contract for Kathryn Matayoshi, who has held the superintendent post since 2010, is set to end June 30. The BOE voted last month to begin a search process for a new superintendent, a decision Ige maintains he was not behind.

“It really is the board’s decision. I have not been involved with that,” he said. “I do support the board’s decision to seek and to embrace a superintendent search. I believe that the blueprint is really transformational in the sense that we did try and take a step back and try to take a broader view. And it really is about finding leadership that can embrace the blueprint and implement it in the best way possible.”

Ige announced his plans for a blueprint soon after passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, which devolves federal control over public education to states when it comes to school accountability, teacher evaluations, student testing and support for struggling schools.

He said he saw the new flexibility as an unprecedented opportunity for Hawaii to revamp its school system. He dubbed his task group the Governor’s ESSA Team, but he charged members with going beyond the scope of the federal law in drafting the blueprint.

Ige said he recognizes that any education reform effort will need to go beyond the Department of Education. His 19-member team also includes, for example, the director of the state Labor Department, the head of the Executive Office on Early Learning, legislators and business executives.

“A great public school system — I believe it’s the foundation of our community,” Ige said. “I think more importantly the quality of the public education system drives the economy. There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s an absolute direct correlation — the better our public schools are, the better our economy will be.”