Anti-labor Sentiment

The 1980s dawned in Hawaii with a backlash against collective bargaining that saw the State House and Senate pass a number of general anti-labor bills.

Despite these setbacks however, the Association continued its lobbying efforts - remaining a stalwart watchdog of quality public education in Hawaii. For their efforts, they gained additional funding for textbooks, budget items that would fund asbestos removal in schools as well as an improvement in overall maintenance.

At the same time, the organization successfully opposed the imposition of additional certification requirements for teachers and a mandatory competency test for graduating seniors. The session showed that teachers were keeping an eye on the legislature and that they had the power to "make or break" legislation that affected the status of public education.

Ironically, the maturation of the Association, with all the attendant benefits and successes, was paralleled by the maturation of its founding membership. From 1984 - 1996, approximately 90 percent of the teachers employed by the Department of Education were brand new and, had it not been for the keen efforts of Association leadership, HSTA might have suffered a significant setback.

In the space of a single year, Hawaii's teachers were transformed from a group of professionals who had successfully weathered the birth pangs of collective action together, to a group who had literally been students in the classrooms over which those first battles were fought. By and large, the pro-active culture of the 60s and 70s was gone and HSTA was faced with the task of finding a way to reawaken that spirit in a membership group that had never had to clean a restroom, monitor students at lunch hour or work in an asbestos-filled classroom.

As profoundly as the characteristics of the average HSTA member changed in the early 80s, so did the character of the Association's relationship with the Department of Education. By the middle of the decade, there was a distinct thaw in relations between the two organizations. It was the dawning of a time of collaboration that would last more than 10 years.


Excellence Starts a New Decade

The new paradigm focused on creating an atmosphere of professional growth and development that would allow teachers to maximize the value of the education they were providing.

The many factors that changed the face of education in Hawaii in the 1980s also facilitated a dramatic transition in the Association's role. The militancy and the need to fight for teachers rights that had driven the organization up to that point, was gradually being replaced by a compelling interest in the nature of education itself.

The new paradigm focused on creating an atmosphere of professional growth and development that would allow teachers to maximize the value of the education they were providing. HSTA began to concern itself more directly with the process of education, education issues, and schools themselves.

One of the first indications that the Association was moving to a new level of sophistication was the groundbreaking 1982 Hawaii Schools That Achieve document. The Excellence Document was the first publication that clearly defined teachers' ideas of what was needed to achieve excellence in Hawaii public schools.

It was an eloquent departure from simply promoting the interests of teachers and it effectively repositioned the profession to work toward the broader goal of making public education better.

At the same time, teachers enjoyed a remarkable run of education-friendly legislative sessions. Some of the most forward- thinking education legislation in our state today grew out of this period.

Although it has since been disbanded, the federally-funded Teacher Center was created to give teachers a place to meet for discussion and to produce materials on education issues outside the schools. The Teacher Center was the first in a long line of significant cooperative efforts with the Department of Education.


Embracing Reform

Innovation and reform were hot topics in education during the 80s, as they are today. Yet change simply for its own sake hasn't always been beneficial for teachers, or for students.
HSTA has always kept a finger on the pulse of change; doing the legwork, the research, the lobbying and the analysis to ensure that teachers are served by innovation, not run over by it.

HSTA support of School Community-Based Management (SCBM) is typical of the kind of intelligent in-depth representation teachers have always relied on with the Association.

Certainly, the concept of site-based management was an intriguing departure from the traditional educational decision making hierarchy, but HSTA was careful to temper their support with solid respect for teachers concerns about change and the potential challenges of the new process.

The Association ws the first in the state to embrace the concept and initiated an extensive training and feedback program to ensure that teachers would have the opportunity to ask questions, express concerns, and get concrete answers and support along the way to full implementation of SCBM.

The trend toward a proactive stance on education began to permeate not only the ranks of teachers, but also to some extent, the Department of Education itself. SCBM was just one of several reforms that emerged during the 80s. As this trend grew, the Association and its members responded decisively, not willing to be swept up in a current of change they began to plan a strategy for managing the wave of change. The strategic planning process was initiated in 1988 to give HSTA the power to harness the energy of reform and make it work for teachers.

next chapter