EDITORIAL
Public schools face uphill teaching battle

No politician worth his or her salt in Hawai'i can campaign for office without promising to do something to "fix" public education.

The candidates and critics cite Hawai'i's relatively modest performance statistics, decry the quality of school facilities and complain that an unwieldy governance system leads to nothing but problems.

And there is validity to such complaints.

Hawai'i doing better

But a study out this week suggests that, in ways not generally recognized, Hawai'i's public school system is doing better than might be expected considering the enormous obstacles it faces.

The study also re-emphasizes the fact that it is virtually pointless to compare the performance of our public schools with our well-established and generally selective private school system.

The report in question is "The Superintendent's Annual Report on School Performance and Improvement." The report outlines what is going right, what is going wrong and what are the major obstacles to improvement performance.

Different mission

The report confirms that public schools — in Hawai'i as well as elsewhere — have a fundamentally different mission than private schools. By definition, public schools must be all things to all people — offer a good education to anyone who walks in the door. And the report points out that those walking through the door today pose significant challenges to our educators.

One statistic in the report outlines this reality with shocking clarity:

More than half of all Hawai'i public school students carry a burden that makes it difficult for them to learn. More than half! They either live in high poverty, have special-education needs or do not speak English well. Some 12 percent have multiple disadvantages.

That number means that for each teacher, half of the students require something extra simply to get them to learn at a pace with the other half.

One set of numbers illustrates the point. While it costs, on average, $6,000 a year to educate a public school student in Hawai'i, disadvantaged students require a disproportionately large share of the total, leaving less for all those without disadvantages.

That helps explain why the Hawai'i public school system appears not to get enough educational bang for its buck.

Challenges growing

Another statistic suggests that these challenges are growing greater over time.

While total school enrollment increased just under 10 percent over the past decade or so, the number of limited English speakers has more than doubled, the number of low-income or poverty children has increased by 50 percent and the special-education load has jumped a whopping 120 percent.

None of these numbers and statistics should be used as an excuse for poor performance. We owe it to each and every child to offer the best and most complete education possible.

But they do suggest that the task we have set before our educators is far more daunting and difficult than many might have imagined.