ESSA Blueprint grand, not DOE’s plan

A huge mahalo nui loa to the members of the Governor’s ESSA Task Force for crafting such a bold, innovative and far-reaching vision for the future of public education in Hawaii in its recently released “Blueprint for Education.” The all-volunteer group worked countless hours and solicited input through 30 community forums to ensure that concerns were heard and the community’s hopes and expectations for their children were included in the blueprint.

The Blueprint provides a long-range aspirational view of where Hawaii education needs to be in the future, with the expectation that the state Board of Education and Department of Education will develop implementation plans to move this vision to reality. It makes a strong statement to empower our local schools, to create an organizational culture of collaboration and trust, to provide a strong system of support that encourages our schools to be innovative in ways that better enable their students to succeed. It calls for balanced assessments to be used to make improvements in instruction, and for alternate more-authentic assessments of student learning.

The Blueprint also identifies challenges to change to be overcome. It states: “Diversity and empowerment go hand in hand. The one-size-fits-all centralized approach is contrary to supporting diverse communities and schools and students.” In the 2016 State Public Education Survey by Ward Research, 83 percent of respondents agreed that the DOE must stop issuing mandates and focus on empowering schools. The Blueprint encourages a learning culture that promotes creativity and innovation.

I also applaud the Board of Education’s decision to conduct a search for a new schools superintendent who will embrace the vision described in the ESSA Task Force’s Blueprint, with the leadership skills and commitment to move the vision to full reality for Hawaii.

The Blueprint is easy to understand and describes a truly inspirational educational future for Hawaii’s schools and keiki. The DOE’s Strategic Plan should complement the Blueprint and describe the first steps to be taken to make it a reality.

Unfortunately, the updated Strategic Plan just approved by the BOE does not go far enough to align with the Blueprint to clearly indicate that the DOE has embraced the vision and is seeking to incrementally implement its long-range vision. The indicators used in the Strategic Plan to measure student success are still based primarily on the collection of student performance data, reflective of the rejected reforms of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. There is no mention of incorporating alternate or authentic assessments to determine student learning.

The Strategic Plan is also silent on building a collaborative, trust-based organization from the school level up. Trust is a crucial element to empowering schools. The ESSA Blueprint calls for decision-making on teaching and learning to be placed at the school level as early as 2017-18. The Strategic Plan does not mention decision-making at the school level, and still reflects a top-down management style with its list of success indicators based on data collection that will encourage schools to address the improvement of scores rather than addressing the needs of the children.

If the vision laid out in the Blueprint is where we want our schools to be, the Strategic Plan for the BOE/DOE for the next three to five years must make a more significant first step to turn Hawaii’s education system “right side up.” The work that happens at the school level must be considered the most important. Hawaii needs empowered schools with effective principals, and every office within the DOE committed to making our schools successful.

Roberta Mayor is president of the board of the Education Institute of Hawaii.