BY ERIN MILLER | WEST HAWAII TODAY The U.S. Department of Education continues to question whether Hawaii has the authority to impose new, stricter teacher evaluation measures, the state superintendent told legislators Wednesday afternoon. ADVERTISING “We believed that we did,”
BY ERIN MILLER | WEST HAWAII TODAY
The U.S. Department of Education continues to question whether Hawaii has the authority to impose new, stricter teacher evaluation measures, the state superintendent told legislators Wednesday afternoon.
“We believed that we did,” Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said during the joint House and Senate education hearing. “That’s not quite where we are right now. There’s still a need to establish for the U.S. DOE that we have the legal authority to do evaluation linked to student achievement.”
Matayoshi also conceded what many parents and DOE critics have said for several years.
“We have gotten to a state where we are not efficient,” she said. “We are not student-focused in many ways.”
Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Wednesday submitted bills to the House and Senate that would base half of teachers’ effectiveness ratings on students’ academic achievements.
House Bill 2527 also sets out that “the measurement of students’ academic achievement must consist of multiple measures to include statewide assessment and other student learning objectives, as determined by the department, and cannot be based on a single standardized test score.”
Hawaii was selected to receive $75 million in federal Race to the Top funding; the state was put in the high-risk category late last year after failing to achieve some of the early goals education officials promised to meet. Legislators convened Wednesday’s hearing for an update on how the DOE was going to meet those goals, particularly the contentious issue of teacher evaluations, which was the sticking point in a failed ratification contract effort by the Hawaii State Teachers Association last week.
Stephen Schatz, assistant superintendent for the Office of Strategic Reform, said the goal is to get a common observation tool to help with teacher evaluations, as well as survey students for their input.
“What we expect to see from everybody is growth,” he said.
Matayoshi’s candor about the department’s situation is appreciated, said Sen. Sam Slom, R-Hawaii Kai, Aina Haina, Kahala, Diamond Head. But he’s heard similar comments and buzzwords before.
“A lot of people believe it’s all about money, it’s all about union control and it’s not about changing,” Slom said.
Matayoshi responded that the federal Race to the Top grant provided the department momentum to take long-promised actions.
“The negative perception of the department is not going to change just because we got this grant,” she said. “We know that. The burden is clear.”
But with the recent contract ratification issue, the department may have lost that momentum, she added.
Federal officials will return to Hawaii in late March to evaluate what progress the state DOE has made, the superintendent said.
Tammi Oyadomari-Chun, Abercrombie’s education adviser, said the governor’s office would like to see a checklist from federal education officials explaining how the state can be removed from the high-risk category.
“They have not been as clear as I would like,” Oyadomari-Chun said. “They haven’t been that explicit.”
emiller@westhawaiitoday.com
