by Andrew Walden

Here is a copy of the 2012 HSTA Legislative questionnaire. For 2012 HSTA has deleted several questions from 2010 including their call for legislators to de-fund services for severely disabled students in violation of the Felix Consent Decree.

The deployment of this endorsement questionnaire during the session--it was due Friday April 20--is seen by many as another HSTA attempt to arm-twist legislators into rejecting any and all education reform efforts.

This is your opportunity to see what the HSTA wants from the Legislature and what the candidates it endorses may be agreeing to.

As a bonus for candidates concerned that they might accidentally get this albatross hung around their neck, we at Hawai’i Free Press have supplied some handy-dandy answers guaranteed to ensure you do NOT get the HSTA endorsement. See below.

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HSTA Legislative questionnaire: LINK

Flashback 2010: HSTA demands candidates oppose funds for disabled students

HONEST ANSWERS GUARANTEED TO SHIELD CANDIDATES FROM RECEIVING HSTA ENDORSEMENT

What are your suggestions for reducing health care costs without reducing services?

Make sure that union hacks such as yourselves never again get the opportunity to run their retirees’ VEBA insurance funds into the ground.

Please share your views regarding collective bargaining. What proposals or evidence could you share about your knowledge and/or experience with collective bargaining?

HSTA does a lousy job at increasing teachers’ pay but does an excellent job at blocking any and all types of education reform. And you’re proud of it.

How would you address the inequities in funding under the current Weighted Student Formula (WSF)?

I would extend the whistleblower protections which are currently denied to government union members under Hawaii State law. Then I would talk all the savings from reported waste, fraud, and corruption, subtract the amounts incurred for the incarceration of DoE officials, and use the balance to improve the per-pupil funding of schools which are shortchanged under Act 51. Of course this means that some of your cronies who benefit from self-dealing in ‘professional services’ would go to prison, but I see that as an upside, not a downside.

When it comes to education, what do you perceive the role of the legislator to be?

To enact legislation abolishing the HSTA, initiate public investigation of waste, fraud and corruption within the DoE and impose mandatory drug testing on all DoE employees. Also to investigate how it is that a homosexual rape gang has allegedly run rampant at the DoE's Blind-Deaf school since the 1970s.

Describe your thoughts regarding performance-based compensation for teachers. How should it be measured (evaluation)? How should it be implemented (payment)?

All teachers compensation should be contingent on student outcomes as measured on standardized national tests by an unaffiliated third party.

What responsibility(ies) do you believe students and parents have in education and how can their level of involvement be factored into teacher evaluations?

The first responsibility of parents is to use pitchforks to drive out anybody attempting to blame them for your failure. The second responsibility is to immediately initiate the charter conversion process for their school.

List three (3) things that you would be willing to do to improve the recruitment/retention of highly qualified teachers.

1) Abolish the HSTA

2) Abolish the DoE by making all schools charter schools.

3) Enact a state-wide voucher system.

Do you consider retirement benefit packages to be obligations that need to be honored or do you consider them negotiable in the future?

Normally I would not be apt to violate an agreement already written, but in this case, retirement benefits should be held hostage to teacher accountability just as you held furlough days hostage in order to pressure parents to vote for Abercrombie. Turnabout is fair play. And besides, you had VEBA and totally destroyed it. We bailed you our by folding VEBA into EUTF. Now you want us to bail you out again while you destroy our schools?