Business Roundtable excited so far by appointed school board

Throughout its 30-year history, the Hawaii Business Roundtable has worked to help improve public education in Hawaii.

Our members understand the difficulty of changing a system as large and complicated as the state Department of Education. While there is much work to be done, we feel the efforts of our first-ever appointed Board of Education deserve recognition as it works to implement positive change in collaboration with the DOE and larger community.

Allen Uyeda is presi-
dent and CEO of First
Insurance Co. of Hawaii
and chairman of the
Hawaii Business
Roundtable.

The members of the Business Roundtable employ more than 75,000 people. The vast majority of these employees are Hawaii public school graduates, and many of them have children in our public schools. Needless to say, our members have a vested interest in the success of our public schools and the 180,000-plus children who attend them.

In 2010, our members stood with many voters in our community in asking for an appointed school board. We were cautiously optimistic with the selections made by Gov. Neil Abercrombie and hopeful the new board members could create a strategic vision to help one of the largest organizations in the state move forward.

From the start, the board has taken on difficult issues and shown a willingness to make decisions based on what is in the best interest of our public school students. While there are many stakeholders involved with the DOE, the most important are the students themselves. This knowledge has sparked the board to set higher standards for graduation and adopt common core curriculum and evaluation standards.

In addition, the new board has worked very hard to create open channels of communication with all stakeholders. As an example, the board and DOE reached out to the entire community, including the Business Roundtable, for input on the DOE’s strategic plan.

One issue addressed by the board is the creation of a teacher assessment tool as outlined in the department’s Race to the Top plan. For businesses, performance assessments are a way to help employees improve themselves. They’re based on the knowledge that the success of individual employees and the larger business are connected. But we also understand teachers’ concerns and the difficult nature of change.

This is why the Business Roundtable, working with Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi and her staff, announced the purchase of iPads for the 64 schools that voluntarily joined the pilot performance management program. The iPads enable administrators to conduct classroom observations within a pre-set template, identify relevant professional opportunities, and email their findings to the teacher in advance of their debriefing.

The donation of iPads was meant to recognize the teachers and administrators at those schools for their willingness to step forward and take part in making changes that will help them personally and ultimately Hawaii’s students. Our Roundtable members wish to thank all of them.

The elements needed for positive change in our public education system appear to be in place more than ever before.

We have a board that understands the importance of building a strategic vision for public education in a collaborative way.

We have a superintendent with the leadership qualities and desire to get the job done. We have a governor and Legislature who support creating a new vision for public education in our state. We have teachers and administrators who believe in doing what’s best for our children.

Over the past year, the team led by our appointed Board of Education has taken major steps forward in improving public education. The members of the Hawaii Business Roundtable are excited by what we’ve seen so far and support the board’s ongoing efforts to build a stronger future for our students and state.

On vacation: "On Politics" columnist Richard Borreca returns later this week.