LOOKS like new Guam DOE Superintendent Fernandez has hit the ground running as he embarks on a Star-Trek-like mission to go where no man has gone before – to bring some semblance of order, discipline, fiscal responsibility and perhaps even some measure of effectiveness to our largest GovGuam department.

Notably, he’s asked for an appropriation equal to nearly half of all projected government revenues – exclusive of federal dollars – for 2013, upping the ante considerably from what many – especially those in the Legislature and administration – consider an already extravagant budget.

There’s a tried and usually true cliché to the effect that you get what you pay for, but we can’t really make that connection when it comes to our public education system. We’re all familiar with the GDOE shortcomings pretty much across the board, from dismal standardized test scores, to dropout rates, to disciplinary problems and more. There are exceptions but they are relatively rare. It seems no matter how much money we throw at it, little changes. It’s something like a black hole as it were, sucking up everything in the galactic vicinity. It’s eating us alive.

To those offended by my comments, go ahead and be offended – I rest secure in my opinion, having observed the system for some 35 years. I also enrolled my five children in Guam public schools at one time or another many years ago, much to my regret. They were all fortunately able to move on to other places and other schools, and all became contributing members of society; none dropped out; none became juvenile delinquents or drug peddlers and none went to jail.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about Mr. Fernandez who surely is, about now, beginning to understand what he’s let himself in for, and the monstrosity he undertakes to bring under control with some form of “education reform.” It’s a monster born of and perpetuated by our quirky political culture, where candidates for elective office can proclaim, without exception and with straight faces, that education is job one. That lasts until the polls close, at which time things revert to business as usual.

Further political cultural blight is enshrined in the GDOE bureaucracy, a protected and sacrosanct behemoth that artfully deflects any meaningful attempts at progress or reform as it perpetually grovels and begs for more money. I’ve said many times that the only way to bring about meaningful reform in the Guam public school system is to slay the dragon – dismantle the existing structure and resurrect it as a streamlined and efficient entity. That approach, of course, succumbs to the same aberrant politics that has allowed it to flourish essentially unchanged for a half-century or more; the failings of a community where most of the population is related or politically connected to itself. I think David Dennis, posting to PJ Media on July 20, pretty much sums it up for the nation as a whole: “The same lousy schools, the same lousy classes, but better paid teachers and far better paid administrators. Our schools are extremely successful at providing secure jobs to employees, but miserably bad at actually delivering an education.”

As we can readily see, Mr. Fernandez has his work cut out for him in more ways than one. He’s already squeezed $2.8 million out of Department of Interior ‘local boy’ Tony Babauta, much to the displeasure of DPW’s Joanne Brown (we wonder if other Insular venues were similarly favored?), and punted the annual funding football to the Legislature. If he doesn’t get the money and fails, he can always blame the clueless 15.

It’s a big job, no kidding, but it fades into virtual insignificance when compared to the second largest school district in the nation – the Los Angeles Unified School District – run at the top by one man, John Deasy, who reports to a board of education. He supervises some 65,000 employees (down considerably from 83,000 in 2007 due to the budget crunch) and is responsible for more than 660,000 students; 70 percent Latino and 80 percent low income. He handles all this with a mere $6 billion budget. Get out your calculator and run a cost-benefit comparison with GDOE.