Ige could just fund schools, but that would be innovative

Thousands of Hawaii public school teachers took to the streets Monday to demand pay raises. Meanwhile, Gov. David Ige is trying to set up a state program where the teachers have to come up with new tricks to compete for taxpayer money in a “Top Chef” sort of challenge. Find a new way to teach third-grade math and get $50,000! Yay!

Can Ige just keep his fingers out of the classrooms and pay teachers to do their jobs? Or give Dawn a superintendent gig so that she’s not back-seat-driving the DOE? Gosh!

Last week Ige revealed a revised budget that cut $21 million from his earlier, math-challenged proposal. Most of the cuts came from per-pupil funds.

However — and here’s this year’s big “Cool the Schools” idea — Ige wants to set aside $10 million in an innovation fund for out-of-the-box approaches to student learning. The BOE would set up a board that would implement submission guidelines and sit in judgment of the applications.

“What we’re trying to do is create the opportunity for schools to come up with innovative programs and ask for the funds that would support that, whether it be $50,000 or $100,000 or $250,000 more,” Ige said last week.

If you’ve ever sat on one of those awards committees, you know how subjective such things can get.

Here’s the thing: Not everything in Hawaii public schools needs to be innovated. Some things are working just fine. And so many teachers dedicate their full energy and attention to teaching in a way that they know works, not cooking up newfangled ways to teach that involve a motherboard, some switches and a Google doc.

Here’s the other thing: Not every student learns the same way. Some truly love worksheets and textbooks. Others love project-based, dig-in-the-dirt, make-a-rocket-out-of-paper-towels kind of stuff. A teacher’s out-of-the-box method can be miraculous for one kid and meaningless for another.

What exactly is “innovation”? The Governor’s Blueprint for Public Education has this glossary entry:

Innovation — a significant positive change; a new idea, method, or product; the action or process of innovating; This is a high bar, and it should be. To call every change you make in your work an innovation belittles the possible scale of progress. The act of creating something, even if it solves a problem, should perhaps still not be considered an innovation until it is adopted by other people, it’s just an invention with the potential to be an innovation. The Hawaii public schools will create and sustain a culture that values innovation and unleashes curiosity and creativity in all learners. Innovations by charter schools will be embraced and supported. Leadership development will focus on engagement, empowerment and innovative practices and approaches in leading, teaching and learning.

It goes on, but you get the squishy gist.

No, no, no, no, no. Let private donors and foundations give prize money for innovative school projects. State funds should go to keep the classrooms clean and safe, the school buses running, the teachers fairly compensated and the students on track to learn the fundamental skills and knowledge they need to go on to career or college. If innovation happens along the way, terrific. But forcing innovation for the sake of a buzzword to be used in Ige’s next campaign is just maddening busywork that puts the fix before the problem.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.