Report Title:

Board of Education; Grouping and Ranking of Program Priorities

WHEREAS, the mission of the Board of Education is to set education policies for the public school system, adopt student performance standards and the means to assess them, and monitor school success in order to enable all public school students to acquire the knowledge, skills, respect for learning, and attributes necessary for life-long learning and productive and responsible citizenship; and

WHEREAS, the responsibility of the Department of Education is to provide educational opportunities for all students so that they may develop mentally, physically, and socially to become contributing members of society. In keeping with this responsibility, the Superintendent of Education is required to establish and administer the foundation program for the public schools of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, the foundation program serves as a basis for determining equality of opportunity in education for all students. It provides a framework for developing each school as a functioning unit, including consideration of the current status and aspirations of the school and community which it services; student interests, experiences, and developmental and academic achievement levels; involvement of faculty, students, and parents; and best use of available resources; and

WHEREAS, the foundation program consists of curricular offerings including the academic program; guidance, counseling, and related services; and the student affairs program. These programs and services must be comprehensive in nature and must permit flexibility to meet the needs, interests, and abilities of all students in the public schools of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, to ensure high academic expectations for all students, the Department of Education is required to implement the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards II, which specify what students should know, be able to do, and care about. The foundation program serves as a basis for the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards II; and

WHEREAS, the establishment of budget priorities is one of the primary ways in which the Board of Education articulates its policies for the Department of Education. The review of the biennial and supplemental budgets is the process through which the Board exercises its responsibility to monitor the programs of the Department and evaluate their contribution to student success; and

WHEREAS, the programs in the current services budgets are:

WHEREAS, reliable funding decisions affecting instructional programs and capital improvement projects cannot be made by the Legislature, the Governor, and the Board of Education without a clear set of validated priorities and rubrics since there are too many school-level, departmental school district-level, and state-level programs in the Department of Education to consider simultaneously; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, that the Board of Education, through the Superintendent of Education, is requested to group and rank all lower education programs, including supplementary programs, according to their contribution to the mission of the Board of Education; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Education is requested to utilize not less than five but not more than ten mutually exclusive groups, to avoid tied ranks, to evenly distribute the programs among the groups, to calculate the fiscal dimensions of each group according to the amount of general, federal, special, revolving, and trust funds they receive, and to calculate the nonfiscal dimensions of each group according to the number of students, department personnel, and schools they serve;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Education is requested to submit its results to the Legislature and the Governor not less than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Sessions of 2002 and 2003, and not less than twenty days prior to the convening of each Regular Session in each odd-numbered year thereafter; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, Chairperson of the Board of Education, and the Superintendent of Education.