COMMENTARY
Improving public education is vital for everyone

By John Griffin

The best way to improve public education in Hawai'i would be to require that all community leaders — politicians, top business people, editors and even state-paid teachers — send their children to public schools.

Noelani Elementary, a public school in Manoa, was designated a National Blue Ribbon School, one of only 264 in the nation, last year. Advertiser library photo • April 16, 2001

That will never happen. But what if that had been the case for the past 40 years? You can bet your buttons that Hawai'i today would have one of the best public education systems in the nation. And private schools would have been more challenged in the bargain.

Instead, our public education system, once rated a democratic success and a source of pride, grew more troubled. Some say Hawai'i "solved" its public school problems by sending kids to private schools, a kind of privately financed voucher system.

It's ironic that some of our best and brightest generations owe much of their success to being educated in public schools and the University of Hawai'i — and then they went on to avoid, even scorn, public education for their children.

And yet it's also natural. Parents want their children to have it better than they did, and in Hawai'i that has meant private schools and going away to college. I have many fine friends, relatives by marriage and former colleagues who followed that pattern.

Nor is Hawai'i alone. Public education has problems around the nation, most notably in cities where the affluent, mostly haoles but others as well, moved to the suburbs. Hawai'i has its own variations on that theme. (As the product of a Roman Catholic grammar school, I also can sympathize with religious considerations.)

Frankly, I see no magic bullet.

Hawai'i seems caught in some deep ruts with its centralized bureaucratic system and split-level oversight. In some, but not all, cases, unions may be part of the problem.

At the same time, as I have written before, there are some good and underappreciated public schools that often beat private schools in more than just athletics. Decentralization has its attractions in this state with its territorial-colonial influences. But you also have to wonder if the Legislature has thought long and hard enough about its current proposals to create seven or 15 or whatever school boards. Only Libertarians may love the potential for creative confusion and the pockets of neglect that could emerge.

University of Hawaii-Manoa students attend a chemistry class. Some are calling on UH to become more of an international institution. Advertiser library photo • Jan. 24, 2001

The status of the University of Hawai'i is related, but with some differences.

Again, I am among those who feel the quality of the university is higher than many people here realize or acknowledge. Think Rodney "No Respect" Dangerfield.

That's so not only in the high-profile success stories such as astronomy and ocean sciences but also in other areas such as community colleges. (Included are aspects of undergraduate education, although improvements there are certainly needed, and in some cases on the way.)

And here, as in K-12 public education, you also find an image problem with abounding ironies.

Going away to school can be educational in itself, perhaps more so from these often-provincial islands. (Looking the other way, my smartest move was coming here to UH from provincial upstate New York.)

But there's a difference between getting away and seeing staying home for college as a last resort. A recent survey indicated that for families with more than $75,000 annual income, there is little or no interest in UH.

And I don't like it the way some private school teachers and counselors here warn students that "If you don't get better grades, you'll have to go to the University of Hawai'i."

(Among the ironies is that a substantial number of Punahou grads every year end up going to UH.)

Part of this is what I call the Groucho Marx Syndrome, so named for the late comedian who said he didn't want to join any club that would have him for a member.

It's also akin to country-club snobbery with access and exclusivity in tension, except this is a public institution. The more democratic UH becomes in its admissions, the less prestigious it is for some to go there, including children of many alumni.

Some good minds are working on this, including UH President Evan Dobelle and Manoa Chancellor Deane Neubauer. With much campus and community input, they will soon bring forth the new strategic plan.

Besides a need to raise standards all around and build new four-year campuses, Manoa should be less of a commuter college and more of an international institution with higher proportions of both talented local and Mainland students. A Manoa honors college for undergrads will have its own dorm — ironically, a democratic version of the snob syndrome.

Athletics shouldn't be the tail that wags the dog in all this, but it is part. And just as we should recruit the best local plus Mainland and international athletes, we need to get top high school and community college scholars to be UH students, a process that is partly under way already.

They, in turn, will add to UH's prestige and lure others to stay here for a year or longer, or for one of the several degrees they may get.

Bottom line, then:

For years I have been saying that the University of Hawai'i is the single most important institution in these Islands. That still seems the case. But the even larger message that is emerging is that all of us must see education — public and private, kindergarten through college — as vital to Hawai'i's increasingly complex and exciting future.

John Griffin is a former Advertiser editorial pages editor. He writes frequently for these pages.