House Bill 2147 wants to tax property to fund Hawai‘i’s public schools. Not just any property — “residential investment properties” worth $3 million or more would face a new state tax. The money, legislators promise, will rescue our long-neglected schools.
The Department of Education already operates on roughly $2.5 billion per year — money drawn from a General Fund that collects income taxes, corporate taxes, and the general excise tax. That’s money from every working person’s paycheck and grocery run.
This new property tax wouldn’t replace any of that. It would stack on top of it. A second layer of taxation for a system that can’t account for the first. The move to amend the constitution should trouble every taxpayer. Hawai‘i’s own state constitution reserves property taxation exclusively to the counties. HB2147 doesn’t just ask for more money. It asks the state to reach into the one tax domain the constitution kept local.
Here’s what they’re not telling you: Hawai‘i’s Department of Education doesn’t have a funding problem. It has an accountability problem. And no amount of money fixes a system built to ignore parents.
Look at the track record. We spend nearly $24,000 per student annually. Yet Hawai‘i ranks 42nd in the nation in school quality. Only 41% of students are proficient in math. Only 53% are proficient in language arts. Nearly a quarter don’t show up regularly. The Heritage Foundation ranks Hawai‘i dead last in education choice and freedom. These aren’t funding problems.
The bill’s authors know something is broken — the single-district system, crumbling buildings, teacher salaries lagging behind comparable professionals. But here’s what they miss: the structure is the failure.
A statewide Department of Education means parents in Hilo have exactly the same say in what schools teach as parents in Honolulu. Which is to say, almost none. Board of Education members are appointed by the governor, not elected.
When families can’t get answers, they leave. More than 15% of Hawai‘i students attend private school, that’s more than 50% above the national average. Another 4% are homeschooled. Charter enrollment has jumped 10% since 2019 while traditional public school enrollment has fallen 9%. Families are finding their own answers. So why does the state keep making it harder?
The progressive position contradicts itself. They champion democracy and local control for everything except schools. They correctly note that Hawai‘i’s school system is bizarre. But their solution makes it worse.
The correct answer? Break up the statewide Department of Education. Maui, Hawai‘i, and Kaua‘i counties are much wealthier than in 1959. County governments already run police departments, parks, and water systems. They can run schools. Most states already do it this way, and most outperform Hawai‘i.
And here’s what no one in the Legislature wants to talk about: next to Medicaid, education is the single largest line item in Hawai‘i’s state budget, funded through a General Fund that runs on income taxes and the general excise tax. Moving schools to the counties doesn’t just change governance. It changes the tax structure. The state constitution already assigns property taxation exclusively to the counties. If counties fund their own schools the way most of America does — through local property taxes and elected boards — the state no longer needs the massive income tax bite it currently takes to run a centralized system. That means real tax relief for every working family in Hawai‘i. The progressive establishment won’t tell you this because they don’t want you doing the math.
When school board members are your neighbors, you can vote them out. When your property taxes fix the leaky roof at your kids’ school instead of vanishing into state bureaucracy, you see results. Local control isn’t magic, and county officials get captured by special interests, too. The difference is you’d have somewhere to show up and do something about it.
The teachers’ union loves this statewide system. One governor’s race every four years beats dealing with actual parents at four different school board meetings. Much easier to lobby Honolulu than face a room full of angry moms in Hilo.
“More money will fix the schools” has become an article of faith in Honolulu — recited every session, never questioned, never fulfilled. What we need isn’t a new tax on property owners. We need a system that recognizes what every parent already knows: nobody cares more about your children’s education than you do. This isn't just common sense — it's how God designed it. Parents are the ones He charges with raising their children, not bureaucrats in Honolulu. Local control is closer to that design. It's still not the thing itself.
Instead of handing the state new taxing power, call a constitutional convention. Dismantle the statewide monopoly. Return education decisions to parents, and, at minimum, to local communities with elected boards who answer to them.
HB2147 should be rejected, not because education doesn’t need investment, but because this bill invests in the wrong thing. It feeds a centralized monopoly that has already proven it can’t deliver results at $24,000 per student. Why would $25,000 be different?
Every dollar poured into this system isn’t reform. It’s ransom. Paid to a bureaucracy that holds families hostage because they have nowhere else to go.
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