The between Republican James “Duke” Aiona and Democrat Neil Abercrombie Thursday night sparked dueling press conferences by the two gubernatorial candidates Friday afternoon.

Aiona first stated that Abercrombie opposes an appointed Hawaii State Board of Education, and his running mate, Lynn Finnegan, said his position on the issue is unduly influenced by union endorsements.

Abercrombie responded afterward that Aiona and Gov. Linda Lingle could have pushed this change over the past eight years, didn’t support teachers over the same period and charged that Aiona is playing a blame game and is “unprepared to take responsibility for rejuvenating and revitalizing our public education system.”

The press conferences helped crystallize each of the candidates’ stances on the role education would play in their administrations:

  • Aiona prefers a board of education appointed directly by the governor and not selected by a task force or committee.
  • Abercrombie wants to move forward with whatever board of education he has and make the superintendent a part of his cabinet-level meetings. He opposes the amendment because it doesn’t have supporting legislation outlining how it would be enacted, although he says he would like an appointed board.

Aiona said at a 2 p.m. press conference that Abercrombie “hemmed and hawed” during the PBS debate before stating that he was opposed to an appointed board of education. Abercrombie responded at a 3 p.m. press conference that he supports the concept of an appointed board, but that because the bill that outlined an appointment process was vetoed, he doesn’t want to hang his education reform agenda on an uncertainty.

Here’s what Abercrombie said in the debate:

“The governor vetoed the bill for an appointment process, so the only thing that’s on the ballot this fall is the concept of an appointed board. I’d love to have an appointed board; I’d like to be able to appoint that board. If this proposition that’s on the ballot passes now, we have to start all over again as to what that will mean. I can’t wait, I certainly don’t want to wait with the possibility of being governor for the Legislature to take whatever time is necessary to recreate all over again what an appointed board might be and how it’s going to come about. So I’m against the proposition that’s on the ballot this fall, because in the end, even if it passed we’d still have an elected board of education likely for the four years of the term.”

Aiona summarized Abercrombie’s position Friday, calling the former congressman’s reasoning “flawed.” He then took the opportunity to make his case for a more direct appointment process than the one proposed earlier this year by the Legislature — and subsequently vetoed by Lingle. The reason legislators did not override Lingle’s veto, he said, was because they “knew” it was not the right method for appointing board members.

Aiona’s running mate, Finnegan, said she is concerned that Abercrombie is “out of touch” with the people of Hawaii and their desire for greater accountability in the education system. The Hawaii State Teachers Assocation, which endorsed Abercrombie, opposes two key Aiona-Finnegan proposals that the Republican candidates say would increase education accountability:

“Both measures, he’s decided to be against,” Finnegan said. “I’m very concerned about that, because as we all know, we need the accountability. Four governors have already come out in favor of an appointed school board. When you have union leaders coming up with these decisions to support Neil Abercrombie, these groups are the ones that testified in opposition to an appointed school board and in opposition to the audit. I don’t think he’ll have the wherewithal to challenge the system to have true education reform. In the past when we’ve had Act 51, and now with Race to the Top, what we’ll need is a team/executive that will be willing to challenge the status quo.”

Abercrombie responded to the accusations by clarifying that he supports the idea of an appointed board of education — but one that comes with an appointment process ready to implement. The bottom line, he said, is that he is not going to get hung up on the issue of an elected versus appointed school board and said Aiona is blaming Hawaii’s education problems on the board.

“What the lieutenant governor proposes, apparently, is that we do a replay of the drama from eight years ago about how many boards of education we’re going to have,” Abercrombie said. “Boards of education don’t teach the children. They don’t support the teachers in the classroom.”

“One of reasons we’re in the difficulties we are right now is the failure of the Lingle-Aiona Administration to understand that they needed to move on seeing to it that we had support for the teacher in the classroom.”

The Lingle-Aiona administration recommended 34 furlough days for last school year. It was the Board of Education that opposed such severe cuts and came up with an alternative of 17 furlough days, which gave the state a national black eye. When parents upset about the lack of progress ending the furloughs moved into her office this spring, she refused to meet with them and had some arrested in front of their children.

Abercrombie said his “administration is going to be child-centered, not blame-centered.”

Regarding his relationship with the union, he said, “I have stood up when I needed to and I have worked with them when it was possible to move forward. As governor who has the understanding and support of union members, they’re ready to work with me to see to it that we move forward.”

If Aiona truly believed an appointed board would increase educational accountability, Abercrombie said, he’s had the last eight years make that change.

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