Public Education in Hawaii
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1993-11-01
Guests: Rod McPhee (President, Punahou School); Karen Knudsen (member, Board of Education); Sharon Mahoe (President, Hawaii State Teachers Association)
Duration: 0:45:10

[00:00:03] Randall Roth: Good morning. I'm Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise radio show. Today's topic is public education in Hawaii, and with me to discuss it are Karen Knudson, a member of the State Board of Education, Sharon Mahoe, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School and co-author of a book, The Organization and Control of American Schools.
[00:00:25] Randall Roth: Lex Brody issued a report to his fellow school board members several weeks ago. The very first paragraph lists a number of things that create concern in the community about our public schools. That paragraph concludes with these thoughts. The most alarming thing of all is the sameness of the concerns, year in and year out. Despite the promises, appropriations and programs, the problems persist. Clearly, something is desperately wrong. Karen, as a member of the Board of Education, do you agree that something is desperately wrong?
[00:01:00] Karen Knudsen: I don't agree something is desperately wrong. I think we are facing a lot of challenges. I won't discount that at all. I think we've made a lot of progress. And I think as we look through the Brody report, we'll find a lot of, um, issues that across the country, people are facing, and I think we really need to keep in perspective that it is a national issue that we're looking at. Hawaii is no difference, different, and I think we've made a lot of headway in a number of areas, but nonetheless, society is changing. We we do face the challenges.
[00:01:26] Randall Roth: I see. Sharon, what do you think? Something desperately wrong with public schools in Hawaii?
[00:01:30] Sharon Mahoe: I think there is there is certainly something wrong when we find students in schools that are really inappropriate learning environments. Uh, the educational task force last year, I think brought out a lot of information to the to the forefront. I don't think most of the public even was aware of of the extent to which our schools had been going downhill in terms of maintenance and repairs. When children have to go to schools or classrooms that are held in storage closets, in cafeterias, in even bathrooms, I think that's a sign that somewhere along the line, we've gotten our priorities all mixed up.
[00:02:16] Sharon Mahoe: If we really feel strongly that that students are the center of education, then those things are really unacceptable. I would agree with with Karen that we are probably going through some of the same kinds of frustrations that many other states in the in the union are. Um but we have a particular stake too, I think, in what happens with our students. We need to find the solutions. What what causes that that mismatch?
[00:02:47] Randall Roth: Hey, Rod, what do you think? I know you're a former superintendent of a public school system and you've written a book. Are things desperately wrong in Hawaii?
[00:02:55] Rod McPhee: Well, I think they're desperately wrong across the country in the sense that Karen's talking about, and I think public education nationally is in a crisis. But I while I may not agree with everything that Lex says, I do think that Hawaii is sort of unique in the sense that the governance structure we have to live with here makes it in my judgment almost unmanageable. I don't know who's in charge. Uh the governor says that education will be second to none during his time. Uh education gets less of the budget than it got before he got here. Uh the state board of education is not responsible for the agency that's in charge of repairs of schools, so I don't know who's in charge there.
[00:03:39] Rod McPhee: The state superintendent is the is the leader in the sense, and yet uh he doesn't control the budget. The board doesn't control the budget. Money comes from the legislature. We've got almost half as much money now in terms of percentage of state budget as we had 20 years ago for education. So I think there's there's very little leadership in terms of advocating good things for children and putting pressure on the legislature. These are the guys that control the dollars, but who can put the heat on them? The governor certainly hasn't. Uh, he's sort of walked away as far as I can tell in terms of public education.
[00:04:16] Randall Roth: Karen, what do you think?
[00:04:17] Karen Knudsen: I think again we have to remember how unique Hawaii is. We have a centralized school system, and although with that comes a lot of problems, again, I'm going to look nationally and we are held up as an example. Across the country, you've got thousands of school districts, thousands of school boards, thousands of principals, and they all each have their own little bureaucracy. Now, I don't think we want to bring that model here, but with the highly centralized system are the challenges of trying to make things work out and streamline it. And I think we can address that, but we do have the capacity here. If the state would put education first, we've got it. We can advance it.
[00:04:54] Rod McPhee: But, Karen, 10 or 15 years ago, a lot of other states were looking at Hawaii as a model to see whether there was something here to copy. Nobody has copied it. The closest thing to Hawaii is a large urban school district, of which there are a number of across across the country. The general thrust is to try to find ways to decentralize. I don't think American education is going to improve unless it starts in the classroom, with the teacher and the child. Whether that's in Hawaii, whether it's in Chicago, whether it's in New York City, you have to start where the kids are.
[00:05:28] Rod McPhee: And in Hawaii, there are so many layers between the children and the teacher and the people making decisions about what goes on, but we're just I don't think that we're a lot different from Los Angeles, San Francisco, any place. We're centralized. Centralization brings bureaucrats, bureaucrats bring hierarchy and not much happens. Sharon can speak to the problems the teachers have in getting supplies.
[00:05:52] Randall Roth: We had uh Charlie Toguchi, the um superintendent of public schools here about a month and a half ago, and he was saying that this movement toward uh School Community Based Management, SCBM, offered a lot of hope for decentralizing things. Um Sharon, do you think that that holds a lot of hope for the future?
[00:06:11] Sharon Mahoe: I think SCBM is a process that can allow more stakeholders to be part of the decision-making. There's no question about that. And HSTA was probably one of the first uh organizations to take an an official position in support of SCBM. Since that time, we've been working with the Department of Education, helping to sponsor the the statewide MCBM conferences. Our teachers and our staff members have become members of um cadres that go out into the schools and the communities to familiarize not just faculties, but parent groups and community groups about what this process is all about.
[00:06:51] Sharon Mahoe: Um I think that there's a balance in terms of how a centralized system can ensure educational equity throughout the state, so that pockets of schools like Kau or Lana'i don't suffer as badly in a statewide system as they might in some other some other model. Um
[00:07:17] Randall Roth: Rod, I know in your chapter in the Price of Paradise volume two, you were less than enthusiastic about uh the chances of SCBM making a difference.
[00:07:25] Rod McPhee: Well, I think SCBM on paper has a lot to to uh deserve our support. I think the problem with it is we're not willing to put the resources in to really prepare the people who have to make it work. In other words, you have principals and teachers who've never been used to making these sorts of decisions. You hold two or three one-day workshops or maybe a one-week workshop, that isn't enough time to really prepare people to know how to make the kinds of decisions and get the kind of cooperative relationships going that enable them to to do that effectively. And I'm afraid what we're going to get here is a is another fad that everybody says is going to change things.
[00:08:05] Rod McPhee: I also have a problem with it so long as the principals are members of a separate union. Uh I said that in the book, I've said it before. I I have nothing against unions per se, but until I mean, how can the principals be free to do what they have to do when the union really determines whether or not they're going to remain or not remain or how long they stay and their union regulations they have to live with. I to me it's it's a contradiction in terms.
[00:08:30] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guests are Karen Knudson, member of the Board of Education, Sharon Mahoe, president of the Teachers Union, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School and co-author of The Organization and Control of American Schools. Uh Sharon, I know the principals aren't in your union, but can you tell us a little bit about at least your reaction to Rod's comments?
[00:09:02] Sharon Mahoe: Well, first I wanted to react to his comment about whether we are serious about SCBM. Uh the fact that very little resources has been, shall we say, poured into SCBM. It's interesting that when the state was first talking about it, they had brought in consultants from various school districts on the mainland that had already been experimenting with SCBM. And there were a few um pieces of advice that were given. One piece was to expect that it was going to take time. The other was that you would have to put resources into the process. Third was you had to provide training.
[00:09:32] Sharon Mahoe: And from the outset, we started hearing about quotas. How many schools were going to be online at by what point in time. And that from I mean, just from the upshot said somehow somebody didn't hear the lessons that had been been learned by by other school districts. So we have schools that are coming on with a grant of let's say, what is it, 11,000, and 11,000 doesn't go very far.
[00:09:59] Rod McPhee: Not even the beginning. No.
[00:10:00] Sharon Mahoe: So inadequate funding and maybe being pushed harder than what it can be pushed at this stage.
[00:10:05] Karen Knudsen: Which is the reason why so many school level people felt like maybe this is a fad. Maybe they're not really serious about it. They can't they they've got to be joking. We can't make systemic changes on that kind of money.
[00:10:19] Rod McPhee: You need to get the decision making, I mean, the lump sum budgeting or however we want to do it, but teachers have to have some control over the resources that they're going to use, determine what they are and, you know, they obviously there's limits to giving them un You can't give them unlimited amounts of money, but they have to have a determination and not be told by someone uh four layers away that these are the materials with which you'll teach. Then be told that you're in charge of your own curriculum. It it can't work that way.
[00:10:48] Karen Knudsen: I think to the same degree, it applies to the Board of Ed. The Board of Ed has to have a kind of a lump sum amount given to them, they decide what the priorities are for the department and then allocate the money out to the schools and districts according to those priorities. But when you have another body kind of intervening and putting add ons, we call them onto the DOE budget, it really um destroys, I think what the board originally sets up as priorities uh for very limited funds.
[00:11:18] Rod McPhee: And it's more than one body. It's more than one body.
[00:11:20] Randall Roth: Speaking of the board, in in Lex Brody's report, he he said that it was isolated, that it was out of touch, it had no clear sense of purpose, that it was a rubber stamp for the Department of Education. Uh pretty serious accusations. Karen, what are your thoughts about that?
[00:11:36] Karen Knudsen: Quite frankly, that took me by surprise. I wasn't sure what made Lex uh say that. Having worked, I thought very in a very collegiate manner with him. I don't think the board is out of touch. As I keep saying, I have two kids in the public schools. I definitely don't feel out of touch with the school system, and I travel a lot. Many board members give up a lot of their time. This is not a compensated, you know, position to be on the board. Um I do think that it's that a time commitment. There are just a lot of things that we have to take into consideration. And I keep saying, being on the Board of Education, statewide responsibility, a lot different from running a tire shop, where you can just say, I want this now. If I don't like it, you know, you're out. We have to keep in mind where each of our backgrounds are, you know, where we're coming from.
[00:12:20] Randall Roth: How do you measure whether a school system is in good shape or not in good shape? I know as as a member of the community, I read in the newspaper periodically that the SAT scores are not particularly high. Um, as a member of the Board of Education, Karen, how do you measure the quality of education?
[00:12:37] Karen Knudsen: I think a lot of it is the commitment, and again, I go by my own children being in the public schools, and I would put them up against any private school child. But I know I obviously private schools have a lot going for them, and Mr. McPhee, your school is terrific, you know, nationally recognized. A lot of advantages and and that the public schools don't have. Right. And I I'd like to talk about that at some point.
[00:12:58] Rod McPhee: Sure. Um, but I think a lot of it is attitude, parental attitude, and it's not just parents getting involved coming down to the PTA, but making sure that their kids value education, have respect for teachers. And I think if we can change a little bit, make education be a higher priority, as in Japan, teachers are held in very high esteem, kids don't act up. They have large classrooms, you know, 40 kids to a class. And I think that's something that we can do. If parents can't spend a lot of time going down, being on an SCBM council, they can at least ensure that their kids are prepared and ready and respect the teacher.
[00:13:33] Randall Roth: When you say respect the teacher and that some kids act up, uh an advantage that the private schools have is that they can expel a student that is um detracting from the learning environment. What do the public schools do? Rod, what should they do if they've got a student that is adversely affecting the learning environment?
[00:13:51] Rod McPhee: Well, I I'm not sure as a public school superintendent, I used to be very unhappy with the Catholic priest in the next town because he'd kick the kids out when they weren't behaving, and I had to deal with it. Now that's a little bit different, but Charlie Toguchi told me something along the same lines about your school. Charlie, I understand exactly how Charlie feels. Uh, I think maybe uh one of the suggestions Lex made, which might be worth consideration in this report of his, is uh kind of a separate classroom for youngsters who are having permanent uh disorderly problems in [unintelligible — audio glitch] a normal classroom, so that you remove the youngster or the two or three in a class that are the major problems. I think his figures said 23% of the teachers' time is spent in disciplinary problems. Well, that's one day a week of of instructional time. I'm not sure that a separate class necessarily does it, but you have to find ways to get them out of the classroom, and yet keep them in the school setting because it doesn't do any good to send them home for the day.
[00:15:26] Sharon Mahoe: Yeah, I think I think a lot of it also involves uh one on one counseling. Um the board and I and even our organization has been working hard to try and improve the counselor student ratio in in the public schools. Uh it's unmanageable now. One counselor to I believe it's 4,500 students, that doesn't allow for too much contact time. But I think if you remove children from a classroom because of inappropriate behavior, you can't just expect them to sit here and all of a sudden learn what is proper. So, you know, Karen, I just like to point out that Lex Brody heads the uh Student Safety and Discipline uh committee. He is in a key position to be able to effect change. So I would look to Mr. Mr. Brody to, you know, lead, as he is pointed out in here, we uh lack effective leadership. Mr. Brody is in a position to be able to make those changes and we have worked with it with HSA. They came up with a terrific report. A teacher spending 23% of her time in the classroom dealing with discipline problems, that's outrageous. And at some point we have to say the rest of the kids are being penalized. We cannot sacrifice all of these other kids because of a few problem children.
[00:16:43] Rod McPhee: I think it goes back to what Karen said early, though, this is this is more than just a school problem. We have seen tremendous sea changes in family structure in social behavior. We have kids coming to school uh unprepared in any way at the at the early levels and not valuing education, not valuing the kind of behavior that a school requires and uh we've had even in a place like Punahou, we've had to increase counseling staff tremendously in the last decade. We just have a lot more broken homes. We have a lot more kids coming to school with baggage that they didn't necessarily bring 15, 20 there. There was never a golden age, but it's worse now.
[00:17:06] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guests are Karen Knudson, member of the Board of Education, Sharon Mahoe, president of the Teachers Union, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School. Earlier, Rod, you commented that um uh our priorities are out of whack or at least you were saying, uh the funding for the public schools has been suffering over the last couple decades. Why is that?
[00:17:42] Rod McPhee: Well, I think it's because our legislature doesn't respond to social needs in the way they respond to other kinds of group. If if they're willing to spend $72 million to build themselves a state capital building and put in koa furniture, at the same time we've got uh instruction going on in converted restrooms. Uh it just says something to the teachers and the parents of this state. I could not believe yesterday, during the 12 hours that Senator Holt apparently was chairman of Ways and Means, when he said that he was going to get $42 million to redo Hamilton library, and he was going to build 700 classrooms in the state of Hawaii. Who runs a system in a banana republic any differently than that? Where one person gets in charge of a committee and then he determines what happens? I don't know where the governor is in terms of needs for public education. Uh you know, he he has not led to say that a larger percentage of the pie needs to go to children. The advocacy for children in Hawaii is not what it ought to be. I'm not sure who ought to be doing it. I know the board members try. I know Charlie Toguchi tries. I think Senator McCartney has been trying. I know the HSTA has been trying, but the legislature doesn't seem to be listening. They're far too busy organizing themselves.
[00:18:28] Randall Roth: Why aren't Why aren't they listening?
[00:18:30] Karen Knudsen: You know, just let me tell one thing.
[00:18:32] Rod McPhee: They keep getting reelected.
[00:18:34] Karen Knudsen: I uh I mean, I agree. It's very frustrating. And I've often thought, is it because children don't vote? I mean, I can't figure out why we don't have the priorities there.
[00:18:47] Randall Roth: Good morning. I'm Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise radio show. Today's topic is public education in Hawaii. And with me to discuss it are Karen Knudsen, a member of the State Board of Education; Sharon Mahoi, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association; and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School and co-author of a book, The Organization and Control of American Schools. Lex Brody issued a report to his fellow school board members several weeks ago. The very first paragraph lists a number of things that create concern in the community about our public schools. That paragraph concludes with these thoughts.
[00:19:23] Randall Roth: The most alarming thing of all is the sameness of the concerns, year in and year out. Despite the promises, appropriations and programs, the problems persist. Clearly, something is desperately wrong. Karen, as a member of the Board of Education, do you agree that something is desperately wrong?
[00:19:45] Karen Knudsen: I don't agree something is desperately wrong. I think we are facing a lot of challenges, I won't discount that at all. I think we've made a lot of progress. And I think as we look through the Brody report, we'll find a lot of um issues that across the country, people are facing. And I think we really need to keep in perspective that it is a national issue that we're looking at. Hawaii is no difference different, and I think we've made a lot of headway in a number of areas. But nonetheless, society is changing, we we do face the challenges.
[00:20:11] Randall Roth: I see. Sharon, what do you think? Something desperately wrong with public schools in Hawaii?
[00:20:15] Sharon Mahoe: I think there is there is certainly something wrong when we find students in schools that are really inappropriate learning environments. Uh the educational task force uh last year I think brought out a lot of information to the to the forefront. I don't think most of the public even was aware of of the extent to which our schools had been going downhill in terms of maintenance and repairs. When children have to go to schools or classrooms that are held in storage closets, in cafeterias, in even bathrooms, I think that's a sign that somewhere along the line, we've gotten our priorities all mixed up.
[00:21:10] Sharon Mahoe: I would agree with with Karen that we are probably going through some of the same kinds of frustrations that many other states in the in the union are. Uh but we have a particular stake, too, I think, in what happens with our students. We need to find the solutions. What what causes that that mismatch?
[00:21:30] Randall Roth: Okay, Rod, what do you think? I know you're a former superintendent of a public school system and you've written a book. Are things desperately wrong in Hawaii?
[00:21:38] Rod McPhee: Well, I think they're desperately wrong across the country in the sense that Karen is talking about. I think public education nationally is in a crisis. But I, while I may not agree with everything that Lex says, I do think that Hawaii is sort of unique in the sense that the governance structure we have to live with here makes it in my judgment, almost unmanageable. I don't know who's in charge. Uh the governor says that education will be second to none. During his time, uh education gets less of the budget than it got before he got here.
[00:22:12] Rod McPhee: Uh the State Board of Education is not responsible for the agency that's in charge of repairs of schools, so I don't know who's in charge there. The State superintendent is the is the leader in the sense, and yet uh he doesn't control the budget, the board doesn't control the budget. Money comes from the legislature, we've got almost half as much money now in terms of percentage of state budget as we had 20 years ago for education. So I think there is there is very little leadership in terms of advocating good things for children and putting pressure on the legislature.
[00:22:45] Rod McPhee: These are the guys that control the dollars, but who can put the heat on them? The governor certainly hasn't. Uh he's sort of walked away as far as I can tell in terms of public education.
[00:22:56] Randall Roth: Karen, what do you think?
[00:22:57] Karen Knudsen: I think again we have to remember how unique Hawaii is. We have a centralized school system, and although with that comes a lot of problems. Again I'm going to look nationally, and we are held up as an example. Cross the country, we've got thousands of school districts, thousands of school boards, thousands of principals, and they each have their own little bureaucracy.
[00:23:16] Karen Knudsen: Now, I don't think we want to bring that model here, but with a highly centralized system, are the challenges of trying to make things work out and streamline it? And I think we can address that, but we do have the capacity here, if the state would put education first, we've got it, we can advance it.
[00:23:34] Randall Roth: But Karen, 10 or 15 years ago, a lot of other states were looking at Hawaii as a model to see whether there was something here to copy. Nobody has copied it. The closest thing to Hawaii is a large urban school district of which there are a number of across the country.
[00:23:50] Randall Roth: The general thrust is to try to find ways to decentralize. I don't think American education is going to improve unless it starts in the classroom with the teacher and the child. Whether that's in Hawaii, whether it's in Chicago, whether it's in New York City, you have to start where the kids are, and in Hawaii, there are so many layers between the children and the teacher and the people making decisions about what goes on. We're just, I don't think that we're a lot different from Los Angeles, San Francisco, any place, we're centralized. Centralization brings bureaucrats, bureaucrats bring hierarchy, and not much happens. Sharon can speak to the problems the teachers have in getting supplies.
[00:24:31] Randall Roth: We had Charlie Toguchi, the uh superintendent of public schools here about a month and a half ago, and he was saying that this movement toward uh school community-based management, SCBM, offered a lot of hope for decentralizing things. Um Sharon, do you think that that holds a lot of hope for the future?
[00:24:50] Sharon Mahoe: I think SCBM is a process that can allow more stakeholders to be part of the decision-making. There's no question about that. And HSTA was probably one of the first uh organizations to take an an official position in support of SCBM. Since that time, we've been working with the Department of Education, helping to sponsor the the statewide SCBM conferences. Our teachers and our staff members have become members of um cadres that go out into the schools and the communities to familiarize, not just faculties, but parent groups and community groups about what this process is all about.
[00:25:31] Sharon Mahoe: Um I think there's a balance in terms of how a centralized system can ensure educational equity throughout the state, so that pockets of schools like Kau or Lanai don't suffer as badly in a statewide system as they might in some other some other model.
[00:26:10] Rod McPhee: We're not willing to put the resources in to really prepare the people who have to make it work. In other words, you have principals and teachers who've never been used to making these sorts of decisions. You hold two or three one-day workshops, or maybe a one-week workshop. That isn't enough time to really prepare people to know how to make the kinds of decisions and get the kind of cooperative relationships going, that enable them to to do that effectively. And I'm afraid what we're going to get here is is another fad that everybody says is going to change things.
[00:26:43] Rod McPhee: I also have a problem with it so long as the principals are members of a separate union. I said that in the book. I've said it before. I I have nothing against unions per se, but until I mean, how can the principals be free to do what they have to do when the union really determines whether or not they're going to remain or not remain or how long they stay and they're union regulations they have to live with. I to me it's it's a contradiction in terms.
[00:27:09] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, and my guests are Karen Knutson, member of the Board of Education, Sharon Mahoy, president of the Teachers' Union, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School, and co-author of the Organization and Control of American Schools. Sharon, I know the principals aren't in your union, but can you tell us a little bit about at least your reaction to Rod's comments?
[00:27:31] Sharon Mahoe: Well, first I wanted to react to his comment about whether we are serious about SCBM. Uh, the fact that very little resources has been, shall we say, poured into SCBM. It's interesting that when the state was first talking about it, they had brought in consultants from various school districts on the mainland that had already been experimenting with SCBM. And there were a few, um, pieces of advice that were given. One piece was to expect that it was going to take time. The other was that you would have to put resources into the process. Third was, you had to provide training. And from the outset, we started hearing about quotas.
[00:28:16] Sharon Mahoe: How many schools were going to be online at by what point in time? And that from, I mean, just from the upshot said, somehow, somebody didn't hear the lessons that had been been learned by by other school districts. So, we have schools that are coming on with a grant of, let's say, what is it, 11,000, and 11,000 doesn't go very far.
[00:28:38] Rod McPhee: Not even the beginning.
[00:28:40] Randall Roth: So, inadequate funding and maybe being pushed harder than what it can be pushed at this stage.
[00:28:44] Sharon Mahoe: Which is the reason why so many school-level people felt like, maybe this is a fad. Maybe they're not really serious about it. They they've got to be joking. We can't make systemic changes on that kind of money.
[00:28:59] Rod McPhee: You need to get the decision making, I mean, the lump sum budgeting or however we want to do it, but teachers have to have some control over the resources that they're going to use. Determine what they are and, you know, they obviously there are limits to giving them on you can't give them unlimited amounts of money, but they have to have a determination. And not be told by someone uh four layers away that these are the materials with which you'll teach. Then be told that you're in charge of your own curriculum. It it can't work that way.
[00:29:27] Karen Knudsen: I think to the same degree, it applies to the board of ed. The board of ed has to have a kind of a lump sum amount given to them. They decide what the priorities are for the department and then allocate the moneys out to the schools and districts according to those priorities. But when you have another body kind of intervening and putting add-ons, we call them, onto the DOE budget, it really uh destroys, I think what the board originally sets up as priorities uh for very limited funds.
[00:29:57] Rod McPhee: And it's more than one body.
[00:29:58] Karen Knudsen: It's more than one body.
[00:30:00] Randall Roth: Speaking of the board in in Lex Brody's report, he he said that it was isolated, that it was out of touch, it had no clear sense of purpose, that it was a rubber stamp for the Department of Education. Uh, pretty serious accusations. Karen, what are your thoughts about that?
[00:30:15] Karen Knudsen: Quite frankly, that took me by surprise. I wasn't sure what made Lex uh say that. Having worked, I thought very, in a very collegiate manner with him. I don't think the board is out of touch. As I keep saying, I have two kids in the public schools. I definitely don't feel out of touch with the school system, and I travel a lot. Many board members give up a lot of their time. This is not a compensated, you know, position to be on the board. Um, I do think that it's the a time commitment. There are just a lot of things that we have to take into consideration.
[00:30:45] Karen Knudsen: And I keep saying, being on the Board of Education, statewide responsibility, lot different from running a tire shop, where you can just say, I want this now. If I don't like it, you know, you're out. We have to keep in mind where each of our backgrounds, are, you know, where we're coming from.
[00:30:59] Randall Roth: How do you measure whether a school system is in good shape or not in good shape? I know as as a a member of the community, I read in the newspaper periodically that the SAT scores are not particularly high. Um, as a member of the Board of Education, Karen, how do you measure the quality of education?
[00:31:17] Karen Knudsen: I think a lot of it is the commitment. And again, I go by my own children being in the public schools, and I would put them up against any private school child. But I know, I obviously, private schools have a lot going for them and Mr. McPhee, your school is terrific, you know, nationally recognized.
[00:31:32] Rod McPhee: You have a lot of advantages and and the that the public schools don't have, right.
[00:31:35] Karen Knudsen: Right. And I I'd like to talk about that at some point.
[00:31:38] Rod McPhee: Sure.
[00:31:39] Karen Knudsen: Um, but I think a lot of it is attitude. Parental attitude, and it's not just parents getting involved coming down to the PTA, but making sure that their kids value education, have respect for teachers. And I think if we can change a little bit, make education be a higher priority, within Japan, teachers are held in very high esteem. Kids don't act up. They have large classrooms, you know, 40 kids to a class. And I think that's something that we can do. If parents can't spend a lot of time going down being on an SCBM council, they can at least ensure that their kids are prepared and ready and respect the teacher.
[00:32:12] Randall Roth: When you say respect the teacher and that some kids act up, uh an advantage that the private schools have is that they can expel a student that is um detracting from the learning environment. What do the public schools do? Rod, what should they do if they've got a student that is adversely affecting the learning environment?
[00:32:29] Rod McPhee: Well, I I'm not sure, as a public school superintendent, I used to be very unhappy with the Catholic priests in the next town because he kicked the kids out when they weren't behaving, and I had to deal with them. Now, that's a little bit different. But, uh.
[00:32:43] Randall Roth: Charlie De Gucci told me something along the same lines about your school.
[00:32:46] Rod McPhee: Well, Charlie, I under I understand exactly how Charlie feels. Uh, I think maybe uh one of the suggestions Lex made which might be worth consideration in this report of his is a kind of a separate classroom for youngsters who are having permanent uh disorderly problems in [unintelligible — audio glitch] a normal classroom, so that you remove the youngster or the two or three in the class that are the major problems. I think his figure said 23% of the teachers' time is spent on disciplinary problems. Well, that's one day a week of of instructional time.
[00:33:19] Rod McPhee: I'm not sure that a separate class necessarily does it, but you have to find ways to get them out of the classroom, and yet keep them in the school setting, because it doesn't do any good to send them home for the day.
[00:33:30] Sharon Mahoe: Yeah, I think I think a lot of it also involves uh one-on-one counseling. Um, the board and our and even our organization has been working hard to try and improve the counselor student ratio in in the public schools. Uh it's unmanageable now. One counselor to, I believe it's 4, 500 students. That doesn't allow for too much contact time. But I think if you remove children from a classroom because of inappropriate behavior, you can't just expect them to sit here and all of a sudden learn what is proper. So, you know.
[00:34:05] Karen Knudsen: Karen. I just like to point out that Lex Brody heads the uh Student Safety and Discipline uh committee. He is in a key position to be able to effect change. So I would look to Mr. to Mr. Brody to, you know, lead, as he is pointed out in here, we uh lack effective leadership. Mr. Brody is in a position to be able to make those changes. And we have worked a bit with HSTA, they come up with a terrific report. A teacher spending 23% of her time in the classroom dealing with discipline problems, that's outrageous. And at some point we have to say the rest of the kids are being penalized.
[00:34:38] Karen Knudsen: We cannot sacrifice all of these other kids because of a few problem children.
[00:34:42] Rod McPhee: I think it goes back to what Karen said earlier, though. This is this is more than just a school problem. We have seen tremendous sea changes in family structure, in social behavior. We have kids coming to school uh unprepared in any way at the at the early levels and not valuing education, not valuing the kind of behavior that a school requires. And uh we've had even in a place like Punahou, we've had to increase counseling staff tremendously in the last decade.
[00:35:10] Rod McPhee: We just have a lot more broken homes. We have a lot more kids coming to school with baggage that they didn't necessarily bring 15, 20 there was never a golden age, but it's worse now.
[00:35:22] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, and my guests are Karen Knutson, member of the Board of Education, Sharon Mahoy, president of the Teachers' Union, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School. Earlier Rod, you commented that um uh our priorities are out of whack, or at least you were saying uh the funding for the public schools has been suffering over the last couple decades. Why is that?
[00:35:46] Rod McPhee: Well, I think it's because our legislature doesn't respond to social needs in the way they respond to other kinds of groups. If if they're willing to spend $72 million to build themselves a state capital building and put in koa furniture. At the same time, we've got uh instruction going on in converted restrooms. Uh it just says something to the teachers and the parents of this state. I could not believe yesterday, during the 12 hours that Senator Holt apparently was chairman of Ways and Means, when he said that he was going to get $42 million to redo Hamilton library, and he was going to build 700 classrooms from the state of Hawaii.
[00:36:25] Rod McPhee: Who runs a system in a banana republic any differently than that, where one person gets in charge of a committee and then he determines what happened? I don't know where the governor is in terms of needs for public education. Uh, you know, he he has not led to say that a larger percentage of the pie needs to go to children. The advocacy for children in Hawaii is not what it ought to be. I'm not sure who ought to be doing it. I know the board members try. I know Charlie De Gucci tries.
[00:36:56] Rod McPhee: I think Senator McCartney has been trying, I know the HSTA has been trying, but the legislature doesn't seem to be listening. They're far too busy organizing themselves.
[00:37:05] Randall Roth: Why aren't why aren't they listening?
[00:37:07] Sharon Mahoe: You know, just let me tell one thing.
[00:37:08] Randall Roth: They keep getting reelected.
[00:37:11] Sharon Mahoe: I uh I mean, I agree. It's very frustrating, and I've often think thought, is it because children don't vote? I mean, I can't figure out why we don't have the priorities there. But I've also been talking to parents as HSTA and other groups have formed these, they've had these massive um rallies outside the capitol. Forget being outside. Let's go inside. Let's not move out of the capitol until we get some results. Because I think we need to start really playing hardball. And the more I've talked to people, the more I've had parents say, you tell me when, where, and we will bring our sleeping bags and stay.
[00:37:38] Sharon Mahoe: And I think we're going to have to come to that.
[00:37:40] Karen Knudsen: Yeah, I was about to say, I think that's going to be the revolution that's going to change the schools. When parents, community, teachers, board members, come together and start verbalizing and really physically coming in and saying, look, we're we mean business. We want our students to be the priority in this state. And they're they're going to have to hold those legislators accountable. It's not it's not just that election time kind of remembering now who was I going to vote for, but it's going to be a constant reminder, phone calls, letters, visits to legislators that's going to make the difference.
[00:38:16] Randall Roth: And maybe looking for something more than than statements that we want education second to none. Let's look at the funding and that sort of thing.
[00:38:22] Karen Knudsen: Definitely.
[00:38:23] Randall Roth: Uh, Sharon, a lot of people in the community I I think are under the impression that there isn't currently an effective way of removing inefficient or ineffective teachers, ineffective principals. And I think there's a sense that the union is is a part of that problem. How do you respond to that?
[00:38:42] Sharon Mahoe: I would say that there is a system in place for evaluating to teachers. Where I think there is a problem is that inadequate observations are done by administrators. Inadequate evaluations are are made or documented to provide for a real um continuous review of a teacher's performance. A 10-minute visit once a year is just not adequate for determining whether or not instruction is at a par every year. What I think needs to happen is and I think principals and vice principals will agree that they need to be freed up to do that very basic function. Um we've had experiences where inappropriate teachers have been removed, but only as long as there has been adequate documentation.
[00:39:35] Sharon Mahoe: Our legal responsibility is to ensure that there is due process.
[00:39:40] Randall Roth: Rod, you were critical of this particular aspect of of the union's influence in Hawaii in your.
[00:39:47] Rod McPhee: Well, it was less what I wrote than what uh Sharon's predecessor John Radcliff commented that no one was fired during his 13 years as head of the HSTA, which I find absolutely abhorrent. Uh we all know that people change and people go through psychological crises and some people shouldn't be in the classroom, whether it's at Punahou or Kahala elementary or any other school. And the difficulty is not only in in the teachers, but I think in civil service throughout the state of Hawaii. There's so many rules protecting the individual, there're very few rules protecting the student.
[00:40:24] Rod McPhee: And I think there has to be a kind of a common sense look at ways in which to deal with teacher evaluation. Again, Brody does say that we've got to get the principals out of all the paperwork demands and get them into the classrooms where the real teaching and learning is going on. I think that would be a major step forward. And I think if the union could help in working toward this Sharon, it would do a lot toward eliminating the the fear that the union exists really to protect the teacher and not to improve things for kids.
[00:40:53] Sharon Mahoe: I think one of the things that that we get involved in too is that perhaps it may not be an actual firing, it might be helping to actually make a change in career. So you get the person out of the the classroom because it's inappropriate, but you don't fire.
[00:41:11] Randall Roth: Sharon, as as the president of the Teachers' Union, do you agree that the principal should not be in a union?
[00:41:17] Sharon Mahoe: I'm not so sure about that. I think I think they have a right to be represented. Uh, if there are difficulties in their contract, then I think that has to be bargained with the Board of Education.
[00:41:28] Randall Roth: We've got just a couple minutes left, other than more funding. I think all of you have indicated that there is a funding problem right now. Other than that, what can we change? And who should be doing it? Karen, what's the one thing you would want to see changed?
[00:41:45] Karen Knudsen: I wish I could make every child value education, every parent understand that that is the only way that we're going to see a difference in the state.
[00:41:52] Randall Roth: How do we do that?
[00:41:54] Karen Knudsen: It may be through a lot of publicity, or sending things home, or encouraging parents to become involved. It's hard. I mean, I'm talking about an attitudinal change. We can't fix society. We can't just blanket put a band-aid on things, but if kids knew that they had to have that education, if they had that vision, and I'm not sure exactly how to get there, but I'm going to work on that. I think that's the only answer.
[00:42:15] Randall Roth: Sharon, one thing other than just more money, what would you change?
[00:42:19] Sharon Mahoe: If people would take uh a can-do attitude and get involved, and be part of the solution rather than just be part of the pointing of fingers. I think if more parents, more teachers, more community members, more leaders would actually start getting involved in the fight for more resources for schools, I think we'd see some changes.
[00:42:40] Randall Roth: Rod, your thoughts?
[00:42:42] Rod McPhee: Well, I I agree with with what both Karen and Sharon have said. I do think we need some more visible leadership and and a clearer system of governance, so that we know where the responsibility is and it's not as diffused and spread out as it seems to be in the present system. Right now, it's hard to know where to go with dissatisfaction. There are so many different places, but it seems to me there there must be ways to clarify this, so that we know who's accountable, whether it is the governor, whether it is the legislature, whether it is the board, whether it is the superintendent.
[00:43:16] Rod McPhee: Uh and and we've got to find ways to do that, and I don't think that's impossible.
[00:43:21] Randall Roth: Thank you very much, Rod, Karen, and uh Sharon. My guests this week were Karen Knutson, member of the Board of Education, Sharon Mahoy, president of the Teachers' Union, and Rod McPhee, president of Punahou School, and co-author of the Organization and Control of American Schools. This week's show was produced by Jill Center with technical assistance from Rick Stanley. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, Aloha. This program is produced by the consortium of Price of Paradise authors in cooperation with Hawaii Public Radio. The Price of Paradise is a best-selling book that has become a must read for every concerned citizen of Hawaii.
[00:44:07] Randall Roth: A sequel, Price of Paradise, Volume 2 has quickly become another bestseller after recently arriving in Oahu bookstores. Please tune in next week when Randall Roth, a special guest, and one of his 65 co-authors from the two Price of Paradise books will take on another question of importance to listeners in Hawaii. Cassette copies of this program are available from Hawaii Public Radio for $10 by calling 955-8821.
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