 Big Island charter school faces big test
A close-up look at Hawai'i's present and future charter schools
By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Education Writer
What is a charter school?
Like independent public schools, charters are freed from much of the red tape that critics say is choking public schools.
They are free to manage their own money and experiment with curriculum, but at the same time they must open their doors to all students, meet the Department of Education’s academic standards and be held accountable in the same way as other public schools.
The first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992 in the wake of a nationwide reform movement. There are now more than 2,000 across the country, serving more than 500,000 students.
Wai‘alae and Lanikai elementaries were Hawai‘i’s "first generation" charter schools when they were designated "student-centered" schools under a 1994 law. They won automatic New Century Public Charter School status when the law mandating 25 charters was passed in 1999.
Six charter schools now are operating in Hawai‘i and five more have been approved for the coming school year.
Many of them emphasize hands-on learning that draws on Hawai‘i’s unique culture and environment. For example, at the planned Ke Ana La‘ahana charter school in Keaukaha on the Big Island, students will work in fishponds, taro patches and the ocean. They will learn chemistry and physics as they study the reef, language arts as they write oral histories of kupuna at the fishponds, and biology as they study the life cycle of fishes.
By law, charter schools must be financed equally with other public schools. The amount of money they get is partly based on the number of students enrolled.
[back to top] |
