And then there were 26 — intervenors, that is.
The united front against NextEra Energy Inc.’s $4.3 billion purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries took a hit when the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260 changed course and announced its support of the merger. The union, which had been one of 27 intervenors involved in the Public Utilities Commission’s decision on whether to approve the sale, withdrew its position as an intervening group.
IBEW Local 1260 brokered a deal in which NextEra recognizes the union as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for its members, imposes no layoffs for two years following the sale’s closing and provides training for current and future members for new jobs that evolve with new technologies.
If NextEra can offer concrete benefits to union members, why not do the same for ratepayers?
New ways to measure a successful school
The school-by-school release of the first Smarter Balanced Assessment test results for public school students gives the parents and students of individual schools, as well the state Department of Education, a benchmark for future improvements — or, heaven forbid, a lack thereof.
The scores were not particularly encouraging. On the math portion, only 76 of 288 schools achieved proficiency of at least 51 percent of students. On the English language arts portion, 129 schools.
Still, it’s a harder test based on new Hawaii Common Core standards for learning goals, so the results shouldn’t be surprising.
We hope the new standards — which include SBA, the Strive HI accountability system, and Common Core itself — will stick around long enough to prove more successful than previous measures.
After all, we’ve been down this road before, with the now-defunct Hawaii State Assessment tests in reading and math and the late unlamented federal No Child Left Behind standards.
