ISLAND VOICES
A few facts to help our debate on education

Jim Shon is the associate director of the Hawai'i Educational Policy Center.

Candidates and voters are asking how much we are spending on public education, or if we are spending too much on professional administrators rather than teachers — the "bloated bureaucracy" concern. The following facts may help in our debates over how to improve our schools.

Question: What percentage of state and local revenue is allocated to the K-12 public schools?

Answer: In 1997-98 (latest figures available), the national average was 24.4 percent per state. Hawai'i spent 14.8 percent of all public revenues on K-12 education.

Q: How much do we spend on each pupil in the public schools?

A. According to Education Week, the national average in 2001 was $7,079. Hawai'i spent $6,391 per pupil. The state with the highest per-pupil expenditure was New Jersey, at $10,787, and the state with the lowest was Utah, spending $4,372 per pupil.

Q: What percentage of the total DOE staff are actually teachers?

A. The national average in 1999 was 51.7 percent of all staff actually teaching, and Hawai'i was second in the nation, with 60.7 percent of total staff serving as classroom teachers. The No. 1 state was Rhode Island with 61.6 percent.

Q: Are Hawai'i's schools larger than Mainland schools?

A. The national average for pupils in elementary schools is 482, while Hawai'i averages 607. The national average for secondary schools is 785, while Hawai'i averages 1,334.

These facts tell us several things about Hawai'i:

• We are pretty far behind the national average for percentage of public funds allocated to public education: 10 percentage points.

• We actually rank very high in percentage of total staff serving as teachers, and are quite lean in terms of the percentage of professionals serving in administrative support roles outside of the schools.

• Hawai'i's schools are significantly larger on average than those on the Mainland. This last tidbit is important because lots of research indicates that smaller schools are more effective in educating students, particularly those from poor families.

It is not very politically correct to suggest that part of the solution might be more funding, but the above data would seem to indicate that we are, by comparison, not the most generous in our funding of public education.