Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 3012 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Auditor to conduct an annual assessment of the educational accountability system.

Your Committees heard testimony in support of the measure from the Hawaii State Teachers Association. Your Committees heard testimony in opposition to the measure from the Department of Education.

Your Committees find that an annual assessment of the educational accountability system will assist the Department of Education in responding to questions about the processes it uses to maintain accountability of its expenditures and performance. It will also help stakeholders ascertain the extent to which the reform model of accountability is working as a means of improving the public educational system. Such monitoring may also provide future legislatures with a ready pool of data from which it can make future amendments to the accountability provisions in the Hawaii Revised Statutes, should they be needed.

Your Committees have amended this measure to make the Hawaii Educational Policy Center responsible for the annual assessment, rather than the Auditor.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3012, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3012, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.