For Immediate Release (April 3, 2001)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 4, 2001

Contact: Rep. Galen Fox Tel.: [phone]

GOP: KIDS DESERVE SCHOOL

Teachers Deserve Pay, Parents Deserve Reform

The House Republicans released the following statement:

In Hawaii, where everyone agrees that education is our number one priority, we are facing a potentially tragic statewide teachers' strike. Though money has been the center of discussion, we feel that it should not cloud our most important concern: children's education. The Governor knows this and is urged to make educational reform part of his proposal.

We recognize that teachers are under-compensated for their valuable work, and like most people in Hawaii, the House Republican caucus supports meaningful wage increases. At the same time, however, basic systemic changes must be made to assure the public that their tax dollars will pay the dividends of well educated children. We, therefore, urge teachers to join us in supporting true, long-term solutions to our educational crisis.

What can we do to fix our broken school system? We are troubled that this extremely important question has remained unanswered. It is due, in part, to a subtle stubbornness of the majority party to explore new ideas and suggestions. Rather than consider creative options that benefit Hawaii's children, our legislature has not budged from the stagnation of the status quo. It is imperative for the good of our kids to break this cycle.

To do so, Republicans favor putting students and parents first by replacing our current statewide school system with local school districts, each with elected local boards who live in the communities they represent. This decentralization has proven to improve efficiency and productivity time and again in other states. Why not do it here?

We are also deeply concerned that the Department of Education has been dragging its feet in supporting charter schools. Charter schools are independent public schools, designed and operated by teachers, and supported by the parents who choose them. Despite being one of the first states to pass a charter school law, we now lag behind because the DOE, in self-preservation, has retarded the charter movement's growth.

The DOE has opposed progressive options such as these in the past, but teacher's support is crucial if we are to address our education woes in the future. We support HSTA's fight for pay raises, and call on them to join our effort to reform the education system. With such support, the pay raises will reflect what is truly most valuable: our children.

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