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This November, voters have the chance to cast the ultimate vote of confidence — or no confidence — in the Hawaii State Board of Education. They’ll decide whether to replace the elected board with one appointed by the governor.

But in the meantime, there’s also an election for six board of education seats, and a seventh will likely be on the November ballot. If the constitutional amendment is rejected, the winners of the November election will serve their four-year terms. But if it passes, their fate is less clear. They may only serve for a few months — at the board’s standard pay rate of $100 per meeting.

At Civil Beat, we decided to provide voters with the opportunity to evaluate the qualifications of the 17 people running for the six open seats. (A seventh seat, the Leeward District seat vacated last month by Breene Harimoto, will be filled through a special election in conjunction with the Nov. 2 General Election. The period for candidates to file for that seat has not yet been announced.)

Candidates kept entering into and dropping out of the race for the other six seats right up until the filing deadline. One even dropped out after the deadline.

Of the 17 still standing:

• Ten are women and seven men
• At least xx 14 xx hold bachelor’s degrees from all over the country
• Five hold master’s degrees, two hold doctoral degrees and one holds a juris doctoral degree
• Six collectively have nearly a century of experience as teachers and administrators at both school and state levels in Hawaii’s public school system
• Four are former union negotiators — three with the Hawaii State Teachers Association and one is a former steward for collective bargaining Unit 13 of the

An earlier report by Civil Beat showed there is no data supporting the superiority of an appointed board of education over an elected one. Another report revealed that arguments against the current elected board sound much like ones made against the formerly appointed board in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Below we have summarized the educational and professional background of each candidate, as provided to us by them. There is one exception: Pamela Young, who is running for one of three Oahu at-large seats, did not respond to repeated attempts to contact her via telephone.

Maui District (one open seat)

RAY HART

Where do you live? Kihei.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Idaho and three years of graduate work in curriculum development.

Career/Work Experience: Taught school (4th and 6th grades) for more than 40 years — 12.5 years in Hawaii’s school system — now retired. Was a union negotiator.

Other Educational Involvement: A parent and volunteer tutor who taught the stock market to middle-schoolers; former member of Kamalii School Community Council and former chairman of the University of Washington’s College of Education.

Reason for Running: “It is very important to have a teacher on the board. Just (like) how on the hospital board you should have a doctor and a nurse, on a school board, you should have administrators and teachers. Without that input, decision-making is based purely on research and assumptions.”

Biggest Education Issue: “Defining what is a basic education is the role of the board with the input of the department of education and the community.

“The most important decisions of education must be made at the school level with the input of parents, staff, students, and community. This is where the majority of funding should be as well as the decision making for the children of that community.

“We need a state board of education to help with the big picture. The local board at each school should be making the decisions for their school.”

LEONA ROCHA-WILSON

Where do you live? Kihei.

Education: Associate’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Also among the first group of women to graduate from the Dental Technical School at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Career/Work Experience: Fashion business owner and first female president of the American Home Sewing Association.

Other Educational Involvement: Member of the University of Hawaii-Maui College Chancellor’s Advisory Committee, hostess of UHMaui TV show encouraging adults to nurture their children to stay in school and mother of one son and two grandchildren, all of whom attended public school.

Reason for Running: “When Mary Cochran chose not to run again for this seat, she and I spoke and she felt that I should run. My feeling is that was probably because I have such a passion for children and education, and she thought it was something I should pursue.”

Biggest Education Issue: “My platform is to address the dropout rate. I want to increase awareness that we have a huge dropout rate. In Hawaii, for every 100 students, 21 drop out of school. Nationally, out of every 100, 33 drop out. There are other issues, but I feel that the dropout rate is so costly to everyone and it limits the exposure a child can have to opportunities and the exposure they will eventually get to different careers.

“There is a need to look at the curriculum that we currently have and see if we can adjust the curriculum to make it meaningful to this group of at-risk students that’s dropping out. And they’re bright. These at-risk kids are not stupid. We just don’t have the curriculum in place that gives them a purpose for being in school. They can’t connect what they’re interested in with what they’re doing in school. If we can give them the tools to connect their interests with a career in high school, maybe we can keep them there and help them graduate.”

BARRY WURST

Where do you live? Makawao.

Education: Associate’s degree from Maunaolu College, two bachelor’s degrees from University of Miami and a master’s degree from Fairleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.

Career/Work Experience: Twenty-two years teaching special education in Hawaii public schools: 11 in high schools and 11 in elementary schools. Former independent business owner of 11 years.

Other Educational Involvement: Former chief of Hawaii State Teachers Association negotiations.

Reason for Running: “I am a teacher, and I feel like we need to look at the Hawaii Department of Education in a different way now. We need to reorganize it. I don’t just mean reorganize the old way where all they did was name-changing, like moving deck chairs around the Titanic.”

Biggest Education Issue: “What I’m looking at is streamlining. The superintendent needs to have a clear message and needs to look at what the needs are of our schools and pare them down to five or six good goals that we should have for a year. And then that message needs to be communicated directly to the principals. The principals are the facilitators and they work in collaboration with the teachers and they would work together as a team to achieve those goals.”

Central District (one open seat)

EILEEN ISHIHARA CLARKE*

Where do you live? Aiea.

Education: Doctoral degree in education from University of Southern California in education planning, policy and administration; administrative certificate from University of California at Irvine; M.Ed. in educational foundations from University of Hawaii; B.Ed. in secondary education in English.

Career/Work Experience: Teacher for 23 years; background as a school-level administrator and a state-level specialist in school evaluation and renewal.

Other Educational Involvement: One four-year term on the Hawaii State Board of Education.

Reason for Running: “For me, I guess I’m very stubborn in thinking maybe things can change, in spite of the fractured nature of the board we have now. That’s why, but I have no misconceptions I’m going to change the board or change the world. I see my role specifically to improve communications and relationships with the people we serve: educators, the kids and our community. I also believe it works both ways; not only us listening to them, but them also giving us their ear and their cooperation, because frankly, we’re not going to please everybody. We’re going to make tough decisions and be vilified.”

Biggest Education Issue: “Our role is not to just to bring out kids who score high on tests — for what profit is it to a person if he gain all of that and lose his soul? Children have to be responsible, cooperative and moral because it’s not just about a brain, but about how we can teach them to use that to be productive and beneficial to a global society.”

Windward District (one open seat)

VALZEY FREITAS

Where do you live? Kaneohe.

Education: Bachelor’s degree from UH-West Oahu, master’s degree in public administration at UH-Manoa.

Career/Work Experience: Program coordinator for the .

Other Educational Involvement: Used to coordinate early childhood education programs for families who wanted to prepare their young children at home for school.

Reason for Running: “I know Furlough Fridays are behind us, but looming budget cuts mean changes, and with changes, challenges. We were all really affected by what happened last year and the way schools were put on the back burner. As a parent who is involved already in my own school district, I know it really depends on us to stay involved. I decided this might be a good time to get involved and support the kind of changes and improvements that are going to be made, and be part of the solution instead of waiting.”

Biggest Education Issue: “One of the biggest reforms I would like to see is more policies that would promote family and community engagement. Another one is promoting family choice — more options or continued options to send your children where you feel they would do best, academically: charter schools, home school or public school.”

JOHN PENEBACKER*

*Where do you live? Kailua.

Education: Bachelor’s degree from University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Career/Work Experience: Retired Army colonel after five years of active duty and 28 years in the National Guard.

Other Educational Involvement: Three-term member of the Hawaii State Board of Education, member of the board of directors for Boys & Girls Club.

Reason for Running: “I call this a community service. And my grandchildren attend public schools, so I have a vested interest in it.”

Biggest Education Issue: Garnering public support for public education.

Oahu At-Large (three open seats)

NOELA ANDRES-NANCE

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Some higher education; finishing a bachelor’s degree.

Career/Work Experience: Home educator.

Reason for Running: “We tell our children to try to be a part of the solution, and I want to be part of the solution.”

Biggest Education Issue: “I would really like to see all schools be coveted in their own districts. I would really like to see that and I think we can — I just think there need to be some adjustments and it’s never easy. But if we say we’re doing this for our children, let’s maybe stop and restructure the system and localize it some more.”

MELANIE BAILEY

Where do you live? Kailua.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in hotel, restaurant and institutional management, with a minor in business, from Penn State University.

Career/Work Experience: Human resources manager for a restaurant.

Other Educational Involvement: Member of Aikahi Elementary School Parent-Teacher-Student Association, independent lobbyist to promote mandatory minimum instructional hours for Hawaii’s students.

Reason for Running: “There are a couple of us — me and Kathy Bryant-Hunter — who are advocating for an appointed education board, but we decided that just in case the initiative doesn’t pass, we want to get involved. We’ve worked together as a team on the education bills this year, and what we deal with are positive solutions when there are problems — treating people with respect, listening to all sides and coming up with common sense solutions.

“[The instructional hours bill] was our positive solution to preventing furloughing our children’s education, ever again. Our experience with the bill was what gave us the confidence to realize that we could make a difference in education.”

Biggest Education Issue: “The most important thing is that we want Hawaii’s children to graduate high school and be ready for the world. I work with a lot of 20-year-olds, and I know there’s a feeling right now in the community and from employers, that students are not ready — and a lot of students go to college and have to take remedial courses. Really, my focus would be how do we get them ready so that they can go out and be contributors in society and I would constantly ask, ‘How does this improve their education?'”

KATHY BRYANT-HUNTER

Where do you live? Kailua.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in international economics from in California. Left the University of Hawaii one credit shy of a master’s degree in urban planning.

Career/Work Experience: Facilitating meetings.

Other Educational Involvement: Activist with Hawaii Education Matters, president of Aikahi Elementary School PTSA.

Reason for Running: “Melanie Bailey and I work together, and we spent a lot of time at the Legislature this last year trying to codify instructional hours for students. We had the opportunity to meet a lot of people that are involved with education. The good or bad of Furlough Fridays was that they shone the spotlight on education, and in the course of that, we were thinking lots of people are going to run for the board of education. But as it got closer to deadline, we didn’t see a lot of people running, so we decided to run together.”

Biggest Education Issue: “One of the big things that’s going on is the Race to the Top application. The content of the Race to the Top and the reform efforts that are being taken up are huge. It is imperative for us to implement a lot of the reform in that document, because there are some great, great ideas in there. It’s really important that the board continue to support it. The second issue, is, I am hoping to improve both internal and external collaboration on the board.”

TODD HAIRGROVE

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: High school diploma from Bryan Adams High School in Dallas, Texas.

Career/Work Experience: Parking lot attendant, volunteer in audio and sound department at church.

Other Educational Involvement: Working with children at Word of Life Christian Center.

Reason for Running: “The current board, unfortunately, does not care. And I care. So that’s why I’m running for the board.”

Biggest Education Issue: “I know a few kids who go to my church who attend public school, and they tell me that sometimes the bathrooms at school are filthy, the lockers are broken and stuff like that. I think money that is supposed to be going to the kids is going someplace else.”

KIM COCO IWAMOTO*

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Juris doctoral degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law; bachelor’s degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University.

Career/Work Experience: Background in law, real estate management and grant-making.

Other Educational Involvement: Hawaii Teacher Standards Board; Career & Technical Education Coordinating Advisory Council; Safe School Advisory Committee; participation in other youth service programs.

Reason for Running: “I want to keep working for public education in Hawaii, and continue all of the successes we’ve been experiencing as we move education forward in turbulent times. There are a lot of national and local reforms coming up, and they’re definitely going to be a challenge. Personally, I don’t back down from challenges very easily.”

Biggest Education Issue: “My priority has always been and will continue to be students first. That means maximizing educational opportunities for every student. I feel we have the chance to offer educational opportunities that enrich education for every child in Hawaii. From a more technical standpoint, I think we need to continue down path of data collection and data decision-making that we’re on now. We should have reliable data that we can base decisions on, so we can see, for example, which of the models for restructuring schools worked and why.”

MALCOLM KIRKPATRICK

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Professional diploma (a fifth-year certificate) in secondary math from the University of Hawaii College of Education, bachelor’s degree in math from UH.

Career/Work Experience: Math tutor, former teacher, statistics researcher.

Reason for Running: “I was a teacher, and I had some reservations about the way that the Hawaii Department of Education operated. And I don’t think that the current structure of the department serves the interests of either students or teachers or taxpayers.”

Biggest Education Issue: “Before everything else, let me say there are too many ‘R’s in revolution. If you take ‘R’ out of it, let’s find a smooth path in the direction we want to go. There are a lot of people who have invested a lot in the current structure, and you can’t just throw it out and start anew. What we can do is expand the range of options and slowly transform the system.

“I do think we can be more supportive of homeschoolers and charter schools, and my preferred option is something I call parent performance contracting. The department of education hires lots of contractors right now — professionals to deal with students of have special needs and the like. But what if the legislature said to the department, ‘If a parent comes to you and says I think I can do a better job than you can, then you would have no option but to hire the parent on a personal contract basis’? It would be similar to Alaska’s subsidized homeschooling program.”

MARCIA LINVILLE

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Master’s degree from the (now-closed) Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, bachelor’s degree from California State University, Los Angeles. Additional credits earned at University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Career/Work Experience: Librarian for 19 years with the .

Other Educational Involvement: Former resource teacher, involved in early childhood education, former educational liaison for the Democratic party and former agency council head for Bargaining Unit 13 of the Hawaii Government Employees Association.

Reason for Running: “I am a retired librarian, and I want to represent the library side of things. When Hawaii became a state, they put libraries in schools as equal partners in the department of education. Somehow it didn’t quite work out like that, and so now schools get 25 percent of state budget and libraries get something like one half of one percent.”

Biggest Education Issue: “There are an awful lot of problems with the department that I don’t think are fair, and although everybody is screaming about budget cuts, there is enough money that if it were well managed, we would not have had Furlough Fridays and we wouldn’t have this appalling problem with maintenance in schools.”

ROBERTA PHILLIPS MAYOR

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees from University of Hawaii.

Career/Work Experience: Former principal, former deputy superintendent for Honolulu district, former state-level administrator with the department of education, former director of general education instruction with the department.

Other Educational Involvement: Former superintendent of a California local school district, served on a “SWAT team for education” called the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team and served as interim superintendent for the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, Calif.

Reason for Running: “I retired from my last position in California and came back to Hawaii just last fall, and I got immersed in the problems the department of education was having. I felt I needed to get involved again in the educational system and determine how best I could serve. I thought, I’ve spent 41 years in education and seen it all: good districts, bad districts and everything in between — and maybe my experience and educational background could help move the Hawaii system in right direction.”

Biggest Education Issue: “There is a lot to be said for the economy of scale, but I think bureaucracy has made the department and the board less responsive. It needs to be responsive to schools, where education of children is occurring. Administration, district and state level — all of those have to be support positions for what happens at the school level.”

ROGER KIYOSHI TAKABAYASHI

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Teaching degree in industrial arts from Western State College in Gunnison, Colo.

Career/Work Experience: Former industrial arts and physical education teacher at the middle-school level and currently Student Service Coordinator at Farrington High.

Other Educational Involvement: Two terms as president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, and current member of the board of directors for the National Education Association.

Reason for Running: “I think this could be the next phase for me. I have a lot of experience in education, and I think the board would be a good place for me to use it.”

Biggest Education Issue: “I think one of the main elements right now is the law and Hawaii’s effort to be in compliance with everything we possibly can right now. And now we’ve added the to that. We’ve been stigmatized as having all these failing schools because we couldn’t really reach the NCLB goals, but if you think about it, no state in the nation has reached the goals or will reach the goals. I think we need a voice in there to provide reality check: We’re here to serve the children of Hawaii. I think in an effort to elevate everything, we have elevated ourselves out of the ballpark. And we need to set realistic standards and realistic goals and communicate those to the public.”

BRIAN YAMANE

Where do you live? Honolulu.

Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawaii.

Career/Work Experience: Insurance agent, former member of the Hawaii State House of Representatives.

Other Educational Involvement: Parent.

Reason for Running: “I think the board has to have a policy, like we do in insurance — because they’re supposed to be a policymaking board — and they have to sell the policy to the legislators. I’m offering my experience making sales and my past experience with the legislature to build a better system.”

Biggest Education Issue: “It seems as if the board needs to create a better rapport with legislative and administrative branches of government, which actually fund the schools. And I think we have to evaluate programs based on whether they are effective, and we have to remember that the goal is not the teachers; the goal is the students.”

*Incumbent