One of the endureing "metrics" applied to the public school system in Hawaii has been the attitude of young military families toward the prospect of being moved to the Islands.

Anecdotally, many families resist on grounds that they fear their children will have to be put into a substandard school system.

But let's put the stress on the word "anecdote" for  moment.  The mojo wire among military families is strong, but is it accurate?

An Associated Press story by Audrey McAvoy (you can read it HERE) raises that question. The story, which has gone viral, talks about how our experiment with furlough days for public school teachers only emphasizes fears that our school system is second-class at best.

But interestingly, the Army has commissioned a $1.5 million study to see if there is any concrete data to back up the anecdotal suspicions. Yes, Hawaii' public school system could do better, but is it any worse, in a material way, than systems elsewhere where military families are stationed?

Done correctly, that study will help answer a lot of questions about our schools. How much is perception and how much reality?

Traditionally, Hawaii's citizens have felt fairly close to their government. We're still a small enough state so that many voters know their legislator by his or her first name and run into them at the mall, the grocery store or on the beach.

That leads to a level of confidence that government will respond to our thinking, maybe not always to our satisfaction, but at least we'll be heard. But as the gulf between lawmaker and citizen grows, the demand for other forms of influence naturally increases.

That's the primary cause of an organization called the Citizens in Change Foundation, a self-described "transpartisan" voter rights group focused on pushing the ideas of initiative, referendum and -- while they don't stress it --presumably recall.

The Foundation recently issued a "report card" on the 50 states for their performance on these matters. You can find it HERE.

Hawaii earned a "D" grade overall, but so did many states. We were given some credits for having local initiative and referendum rights (although these are limited) but no statewide initiative or referendum.

The implication of the report is that things could be improved if Hawaii citizens had a unilateral right to propose constitutional amendments, propose new state laws or put enacted laws up to a referendum

That's a debatable premise at best. While in an ideal world initiative, referendum and recall would be tools of the general public designed to keep elected officials in check, it rarely works that way. Generally (take a look at California, for instance), they become another avenue for big money to influence the public sector.

And with the U.S. Supreme Court now moving away from any kind of restrictions on the spending of big companies and big unions in the political arena, this trend will only become more pronounced.

If we cannot trust our elected representatives to work in our best interests, why do we have this system in the first place?

This is not my idea: Former State Rep. Brian Schatz  perhaps first poisited the idea that the best way to fix our public school system is to "blow it up" and start over from scratch.

Well.  thats not likely to happen.  But the political consensus is growing that something has to change.  Our current governor, Linda Lingle, who once proposed to break up the statewide school system into more of a community-based operation, now argues that a key is to have the superintendent of education reporting to, and directly responsible to, the governor. That's the "buck stops here " model.

And now, three former governors have come out  in an op ed in The Advrtiser in favor of a new system that has instead of an elected school boartd, an appointed one, similar to the UH board of regents. In some ways, this is a half-way measure since the governor would not directly choose the school superintendent.  But it would shift some accountability to the governor's office.

This might be seen less than a full solution.. But come on. If four governors of Hawaii believe it is time to change the way things work, that's a lot of gravitas. Let's get on with it.

That flap over the display of artwork in the state Capitol is most interesting.

Two displays are under fire. One is a series of tasteful black and white photographs that offer a glimpse into gay and other alternative lifestyles. It was clearly timed to coincide with a vote (which did not happen) on a civil unions bill before the House.

The other was a display of childrens'  art that had a clear message: Most of the works, if not all, took aim at the furlough Fridays that have denied school kids a full week of education.

Free speech advocates are aghast that the state intends to have the school art display removed. The photography exhibit has run its course but otherwise might have been removed as well.

The folks who manage the Capitol are in an  awkward position. If there is any place where freedom of speech should be encouraged, it is in this seat of government. But where does it end? Should anti-same-sex advocates be allowed to have their art display put up? What about people who are angry at the unions and believe furloughs are the way out of the budget crunch? Should they be allowed put up posters or some other kind of artwork?

It's easy to how there might be no end to this. The answer is either to put aside a permanent spot for advocacy artwork, and let people rotate through on a regular and scheduled basis or to prohibit all such displays on grounds it would be nearly impossible to be equally fair to all sides.

Meanwhile, the Capitol rotunda remains a vibrant location for demonstrations, speech-making and the like. And believe it, when a group of people show up to make noise in the rotunda, lawmakers and bureaucrats alike hear them. No doubt about it.

The decision by the state House to “indefinitely postpone” a decision on the civil unions bill undoubtedly makes good political sense.

If you don’t have enough votes to guarantee the thing becomes law, why mess around with it?

The problem here is that the issue is likely to dog lawmakers throughout the session, distracting them from other critical matters from the state budget to education.

There’s no question that the civil unions bill, as it relates to basic fairness and human rights, is important. But if legislators cannot bring themselves to pass it now, it should be set aside until other work is accomplished.

And at that point, take a vote. The public deserves to know where our representatives stand, no matter how painful it might be.