Hawaii Gov Plans To Forge Ahead With 'Race' Goals
01/23/2012
Gov. Neil Abercrombie vowed in his State of the State speech Monday that Hawaii will finish the Race to the Top with or without the teachers union's cooperation.
But going it alone could continue to jeopardize the state's federal grant, which was already placed on "high-risk" status in December.
A couple of key education reforms promised in the grant application depend on buy-in from the union: annual teacher evaluations and a performance-based pay system.
After talking about leaving behind "the drama of the recent past," like the Hawaii State Teachers Association's case against the state before the Hawaii Labor Relations Board and the union's now two-time rejection of agreements reached in collective bargaining negotiations, Abercrombie got down to details.
"We will be using all management, administrative, legislative and legal tools we have at our disposal to implement an evaluation system that not only measures, but achieves student growth," he said Monday. "We wanted to cross the Race to the Top finish line side-by-side with the HSTA. Make no mistake we will cross that finish line."
He had already made it clear at a press conference three days ago that most of the state's Race to the Top commitments "never had to be negotiated" with the union, including the one promising an annual teacher evaluation system.
Although the Hawaii Department of Education currently only evaluates teachers once every five years, if that, it is true that annual evaluations for teachers and principals have already been written into the Hawaii Revised Statutes. If the union doesn't want to help, the state can exercise its management rights to design and implement annual evaluations, Abercrombie said on Friday.
"The provisions for evaluations are there right now," he said on Friday.
But if he wants to "finish" the Race to the Top and receive the rest of the state's $75 million grant without getting disqualified first, the governor may not be able to leave the union behind.
The 2010 grant application banked heavily on a letter of support from HSTA, and the fact that the state had "successfully engaged" the teachers union in developing the evaluations to improve teacher effectiveness.
According to Hawaii's application, both the Department of Education and HSTA agreed to "measure teacher effectiveness" using the following criteria:
- 50% will be based on student learning gains, using measures described in Section (D)(2)(i) above; and
- 50% will be based on teacher practice as rated by: multiple observers; stakeholder satisfaction; teacher knowledge and skills as measured by professional growth; and school-based leadership and service.
But Hawaii also committed to collaborating with the union on a performance-based pay system — because performance pay, the governor acknowledged Friday, is by law a matter for collective bargaining.
