COMMENTARY
Hawai'i public education curriculum: AC or DC?
By David H. Rolf
In the early days of electric power, during the last part of the 19th century, two methods of distribution were proposed.
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Thomas Edison, who had just come off perfecting the incandescent light bulb, favored direct current; however, it could be transmitted at only a single voltage for little more than half a mile. Rival George Westinghouse and his partner Nikola Tesla favored alternating current, which allowed current to flow back and forth over two wires and used transformers for the creation of a regional and even national "grid" of generators and transmission lines.
They all apparently knew the answer to third-grade teacher Patricia Cullen's question about measuring temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, in one of the portable classrooms at August Ahrens Elementary School. It's the largest elementary school in Hawai'i, with about 1,200 students.
You can see why AC soon prevailed over DC.
Today's public education debate again pits AC versus DC: Academic Curriculum versus Don't Care.
The latter term may sound like a harsh indictment, but a troubling fact remains: Hawai'i's public schools don't have a statewide academic curriculum. In the absence of such, what we call "education" in Hawai'i happens somewhat randomly.
To be sure, some learning occurs, but not at the level that allows Hawai'i and more of her public school students to pursue all their dreams.
In fact, we know that Hawai'i is last, or near last, on national tests of states' student verbal and math reasoning skills. Mastery of such skills is considered by many to be the real objective of K-12 public education.
The College Board recently released information showing that Hawai'i's students are at the bottom of the list of the 23 states that had a high percentage of students taking the SAT. The combined Hawai'i student verbal and math reasoning score was 951, or some 107 points below Washington state's 1,058 mean score.
Many in Hawai'i are beginning to feel that the essence of the reasoning-score problem is because Hawai'i doesn't have an academic curriculum. Hawai'i's students may be ready to learn, but ready to learn what?
Some teachers think we should teach, for example, the meaning of the 13 stripes in the American flag. Teaching about the American flag, however, is not specified in any statewide Hawai'i education policy.
Do we have a state policy to teach the capitals of the 50 states? Nope.
Thomas Edison? Nope.
The Wright brothers? Not included.
Lewis and Clark? Sorry.
It's hard for Hawai'i students to develop verbal reasoning skills when their vocabularies are missing the capitals, Edison, Wright brothers, Lewis and Clark, and thousands of other key content items found in rigorous curriculums.
Some Hawai'i public schools are now using a formula for success which could be expressed as E=mc, where Education equals mastery of the curriculum. These schools combine a phonics-based reading mastery program called Direct Instruction with concepts and vocabulary found in the rigorous Core Knowledge curriculum, which contains more than 5,000 key concepts.
Two of Hawai'i's high-poverty schools, Solomon Elementary and Kauluwela Elementary, followed the E=mc formula for success and, last year, were the only schools out of the 100 high-poverty schools in the state to achieve annual yearly progress four years in a row. Solomon embraced the program with early help from businesses, including Hawai'i's auto dealers, and Kauluwela created the identical winning formula on its own.
Both Direct Instruction and Core Knowledge are used nationwide in hundreds of public and private schools, and now in some public schools in Hawai'i. Solomon and Kauluwela used existing money in their Title 1 budgets to purchase the programs.
Academic curriculum is the key.
Any "education system" not focused on achieving high levels of verbal and math reasoning skills, through use of a rigorous academic curriculum, is only performing a service with some random learning involved.
It's AC versus DC. Which will it be?
If you have a child in public school, I'd recommend you ask the principal about what it would take to install a rigorous academic curriculum, and if you're told one exists, ask to take a look at it. See if you can find the state capitals, the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison.
I hope you'll be among those pushing for a rigorous Academic Curriculum (AC), because DC just won't work out for Hawai'i's students.
David H. Rolf was a member of the 1999 Governor's Education Task Force and the National Education Goals Panel's Task Force (Future of the Goals).
