Senate Education Chair Jill Tokuda’s Remarks in Support of Charter School Omnibus Measure

On May 3, 2012, Senate Committee on Education Chair Jill Tokuda gave the following remarks in support of Senate Bill (SB) 2115, relating to Charter Schools. SB 2115 is the charter school omnibus measure, which puts in place a comprehensive governance system for Hawaii’s charter schools.

Together, SB 2115 and SB 2116 strengthen Hawaii’s Charter School system by increasing accountability in the governance of Hawaii’s Charter Schools that will foster improved student outcomes. SB 2115 establishes clear lines of authority and clarifies the relationships, responsibilities, and lines of accountability among stakeholders of Hawaii’s Charter School System. SB 2116 appropriates funds to help with the transition.

“Thank you. While I have said that this bill is the culmination of almost a years worth of work- with it literally beginning with weekly meetings since July 20, 2011- it really began quite some time ago… 1994 to be exact, eighteen years ago, when the legislature took the first steps to create Charters, then called Student Centered Schools. So it is appropriate then- as Charter Schools figuratively come of age- that we move into a new era of Charter School governance. The creation of a system that is unique to our state in that it takes what has worked in the past, merged it with national models of best practice, and through active engagement with stake-holder groups has resulted in the bill you see before us today.

Ninety-one pages long, this measure has been tightened and changed throughout the process to address concerns and to anticipate future needs. Ninety-four amendments to be exact and I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to specifically thank one individual. I assure you , there are many people who need to be thanked for their work on this, but had it not been for Krislen Chun, our SMA attorney who worked with us on both the task force and this bill, getting to this point would have been nearly impossible.

So what does this bill do? Centered around the philosophy that autonomy plus accountability equals increased student achievement, this complete re-codification of our charter school laws provides schools with the flexibility they need to be innovative while maintaining the requisite level of accountability as these are public school students, and tax payer dollars. Examples of our efforts to balance autonomy and accountability can be found in many places, including our removal of the cap on the number of charter schools, coupled with a tightening of our application process, ensuring that only strong applications are awarded charter status.

We’ve strengthened the role of the authorizer and provided them with the authority and capacity to hold their charters accountable, while at the same time moving forward on a recommendation to provide schools with the flexibility and resources they need in regards to purchase of services and technical support. We’ve established performance contracts, which really are a bit of both, in that it holds schools accountability for meeting the indicators and metrics identified in both their contracts and annual performance targets, while providing schools with clear expectations and the ability to include rigorous, valid, and reliable indicators to augment external evaluations on their performance. We’ve changed the form and the function of what will now be of public charter school commission and governing boards at the school level, removing the constituency based nature of the members while allowing for the appointment of individuals with the specialized skill sets and understanding of charter schools needed to support a successful and thriving charter school system. And amongst the most controversial, at times, we’ve maintained charter schools exemption from various state laws, but made it clear that schools and their governing boards shall be subject to the state ethics code.

At every point, we have been explicitly redundant, requiring rule making and reporting, defining and highlighting, and yet we know the real work lies ahead in implementing and transitioning into this new system. And I would like to also thank the chair and vice chair of the Ways and Means committee for their support in the half-a-million dollars in transitions funding needed to see this through. It will not be easy, and I know that there is much anticipation and fear, but the measure we have before us puts in place a solid system of governance that will be good for all of our communities and for the students served by our charter schools.

I humbly ask for your support and consideration of this measure.”

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