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When it comes to Hawaii’s , there’s more than one way to skin the cat.

At least, that’s the philosophy of state leaders trying to ensure the state doesn’t lose the $75 million federal education reform grant. Hawaii was put on notice in December when U.S. Department of Education officials placed the grant on “high-risk” status for failure to make adequate progress on certain goals — among them, teacher evaluations and performance-based pay.

Two months later, the executive branch of government is attacking the problem on three fronts at once.

are considering that would give the the authority to develop and implement a performance management system for teachers and principals.

On Tuesday, the plans to vote on that together would require the Department of Education to develop a performance management system for teachers and principals.

Meanwhile, state and union negotiators appear to be working toward an agreement that would include performance-based pay and tenure for teachers, all based on an evaluation system still in its early stages of development.

Gov. promised, after all, to use whatever means necessary to save the grant.

“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 in his State of the State speech in January after the rejected a tentative agreement with the state that included the needed reforms.

“We wanted to cross the Race to the Top finish line side-by-side with the HSTA,” Abercrombie said. “Make no mistake we will cross that finish line.”

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week urged other governors to , who gave negotiators a deadline to reach an agreement on teacher evaluations before he took matters into his own hands. They came up with a deal before the deadline.

“Governor Cuomo stepped up and showed real courage,” Duncan said. “I hope more governors follow his lead.”

Abercrombie is trying. Hawaii’s two legislative measures are in the governor’s package, he invited the union to return to negotiations, and he appointed this Board of Education. In other words, the governor is involved in all three of the major attempts to reform performance management in the school system.

Paths Diverging

Senate Education Chairwoman told that it’s too early to say which of these will end up being the best approach.

“I think there’s multiple paths in play right now to achieving these performance measures,” she said. “Ideally, you should only have one in place at the end. But the question I think we’re still struggling with is, which path is going to be the most viable, practical outcome for achieving a permanent comprehensive teacher evaluation and support system?”

Board of Education Chairman said he believes performance management is a board policy matter and plans to tackle it that way.

Tokuda said the board’s attempt to push the reform goals into reality doesn’t necessarily undermine what’s going on at the Legislature and the bargaining table.

“It’s simply another option,” she said. “Ideally, our bill will become unnecessary. Given everything that’s going on right now, I think our legislation does serve a purpose to really ensure there’s a sense of urgency to do due diligence to this and work it out. These different approaches aren’t necessarily clashing. I think each path has a particular role it’s playing right now.”