IT LOOKS like Gov. Calvo has really got his teeth into the education reform issue. He addressed it at least six times in as many weeks as he tells us in his weekly spiels how bad things are at GDOE.

What I see here is a governor using the shotgun approach to attack what he believes to be the big issues at GDOE. He’s stamping on ants while being run over by elephants and as they say, it’s difficult to drain the swamp when you’re up to your dåggan in alligators. Desperate measures that can’t work aren’t going to win the day.

Every Guam governor in history has used the education political football in the same fashion and for the same purpose. Every one of them has talked the talk and not one of them has ever walked the walk. Gov. Calvo’s pontificating notwithstanding, even with the best of intentions he’ll run head-on into resistance from the entrenched GDOE bureaucracy and the Legislature no matter who’s in charge. There are far too many personal political agendas at play there to make enlightened management more than a wistful dream.

That’s underscored by the current scheme from Sen. Guthertz, Bill 437, that purportedly provides for "alternative financing" to renovate and upgrade all the schools. When signing it into law, Lt. Gov. Tenorio says he “has reservations” about it and, well, he should have. One of the suggested financing schemes mentioned is exempting “leaseback” contract awardees from GRT.

What about the indenture provisions for the recent series A and B bonds? It requires that “so long as any bonds issued pursuant to 1512.3, Title 5, Guam Code Annotated remain outstanding, the government of Guam may not ... reduce the services, products or activities to which the pledged business privilege tax applies, nor may the government of Guam upwardly adjust any exception or exclusion to, or otherwise impair, the pledged business privilege tax.” That’s definitely going to be a problem for those who contemplate GRT exemptions, at least for the next 30 years.

A more reasonable and serious initiative should be to put an experienced and responsible person in charge of GDOE cost-containment as a primary and only job. Any reasonably able statistician/businessman or engineer could probably find ways to cut maintenance and operating costs in half in no time, and the right manager (superintendent) could straighten out the personnel mess. That would relieve most of the financial pressure.

Along with that should come a zero-based budget process for all GovGuam agencies. Every single non-teacher position would be fully justified along with every other GovGuam classified job – not copied from the same job description they’ve used for the last 30 years but entered on a competitive basis across the entire GovGuam spectrum. Every GDOE piece of non-installed equipment and all supplies would also be justified and compete with submissions from every cost center in GovGuam. Any job or item not making the cut gets deleted.

It does little good to identify a problem and propose corrective measures if there’s no timeline attached. We have ample evidence of that in the Ordot debacle and the current Department of Corrections and mental health swamps. Create a critical path roadmap that identifies each desired outcome and attach a deadline so that follow-on events can also happen on time. Missed deadlines without a good excuse would be grounds for dismissal.

One final note with which not everyone will agree but which is hard, solid fact. The notion that “cultural studies” or “creative thinking” are more important than factual knowledge avoids the point that one’s thinking is limited by one’s knowledge. If the student isn’t learning, the teacher isn’t teaching. As the only non-educator in my immediate family, I know how that works.