Issues
The Board of Education has often been criticized by outsiders as being driven by partisan politics, by special or “local” interests (putting some children and schools ahead of others) and by political posturing by members who are actually aspiring to higher office and are therefore unwilling to put the public schools of Hawaii above their own personal ambitions.
As a Board of Education Member I pledge that I will:
- Work with the rest of my colleagues at the Board of Education to build a policy consensus and with the DOE to ensure that standards are consistent and fair.
- Always treat every student and every school as equally deserving of a quality education regardless of their location or political influence.
- I will ALWAYS place the needs of ALL of Hawaii’s public school children, teachers and administrators as my primary concern.
- I pledge that if elected I WILL NOT RUN FOR ANOTHER PUBLIC OFFICE.
The Board Of Education has been criticized for attempting to micro-manage the Department of Education thereby contributing to bureaucratic “red tape” and cutting the effectiveness of DOE administrators to do the job that they have been hired to do.
As a Board of Education Member I pledge that I will:
- Do ONLY the job that I am elected to do. I will set overall educational policy and monitor the success of the Department of Education in executing that policy using standards that are clear, fair and above all consistent across the State.
- Look for ways to increase the effectiveness of all levels of the Hawaii public school system and I will work to guarantee that the system has both the financial and political support from the Legislature needed to deliver the high quality education the children of this State deserve.
Teacher turnover is one of the greatest problems facing Hawaii’s public school system. In some schools the annual turnover rate is now approaching 50% per year. It is virtually impossible to provide a quality education to our children without improving the environment for our teachers and reducing teacher turnover.
As a Board of Education Member I pledge that I will:
Support further investment in our teachers by:
- Working to provide teachers with mentoring initiatives to help train new teachers and to provide continuing support to veteran teachers as a way of reducing turnover
- Work to ensure that all teachers have a means to share their successful ideas as well as the latest teaching research throughout the school system.
- Work to cut the “red tape” that keeps teachers out of their classrooms and administrators away from their teachers. By cutting the time that teachers are forced to spend outside of their classrooms we can increase the amount of teaching students get without asking their teachers to work ever longer hours for the same pay. There is a “win-win” scenario.
There is virtually no centralized support for principals and administrators within Hawaii’s public school system. Many new principals are forced to “learn on the job” the numerous skills, from physical plant to curriculum management that it takes for them to effectively manage their schools.
As a Board of Education Member I pledge that I will:
- Work to support principal mentoring and support initiatives to help our new principals become effective faster and to be sure that the best ideas are shared among all of the State’s principals.