ISLAND VOICES
Why OHA joined the fray
By Haunani Apoliona
Haunani Apoliona is chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees.
The public-school system has worked against Native Hawaiians. It's time for change.
At its meeting on April 1, the OHA Board of Trustees voted to support education reform. Why did OHA trustees speak out in support of increasing local control in schools? Because the current system has not worked for Native Hawaiians for more than 20 years. We need change, and we need it now.
A 2003 PASE report (Policy Analysis & System Evaluation) by Kamehameha Schools shows Hawaiian students have the lowest test scores and the lowest graduation rates of all students in the public school system. They have the highest rates for students held back a grade each year. They are over-represented, by more than 50 percent, among students needing special education.
APOLIONA
The schools they attend are more likely than other schools to employ teachers with less experience and tenure, while Hawaiian children make up 26 percent of the public-school population. The dropout rate between freshman year and senior year at one high school in a predominantly Hawaiian community is nearly 50 percent.
Such statistics cannot be ignored. OHA trustees have a statutory obligation to work to better the conditions of Native Hawaiians. Education is one of the most basic necessities to improving the social and economic conditions of Native Hawaiians. In a state where Hawaiians score at the bottom in public education and where predominantly Hawaiian communities have the highest teacher turnover rates, something must be done.
As early as 1983, the Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment Project reported that Hawaiian children were performing dismally in the public-school system. Consider that these statistics exist among the indigenous people of Hawai'i who, in the mid-1800s, had a literacy rate of 97 percent, one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
All of this information tells us that something about our public education system needs to change. The changes need to be of essence — systemic changes, not just Band-Aid approaches to change. The OHA board's decision calls for increasing local control in schools. Local control is not just about providing teachers and principals with greater opportunities to react to situations that occur in the schools. More importantly, it is about accountability — something that has been lacking in our public-school system.
A recent Hawai'i Poll indicates the public feels schools need smaller class sizes and more textbooks, computers and building maintenance. In the survey, school governance did not appear to be of concern to the typical parent. However, it is governance itself that can bring more textbooks and smaller class sizes to schools. It is a redirecting of substantial funding to schools, and the delegation of authority to school principals on how to spend that money, that will allow principals to purchase more textbooks, hire more teachers, reduce class sizes, buy more computers, and take care of building repairs and maintenance.
We need a positive relationship among all state departments to create and maintain a better learning environment for our public schools. The mandate is clear. We want our children to be able to read and write, to complete secondary education, to seek post-secondary educational opportunities by graduating from college or a vocational education program if that is their choice, to be successful in job applications, and obtain and retain jobs with salaries that increase Hawaiian families' incomes to levels substantially higher than the present poverty levels.
OHA trustees continue to urge transformation of the educational system significantly and immediately. OHA trustees look to policy-makers to keep healthy school learning environments uppermost in the plan. We look forward to enactment of sound and reasonable public policy that advances improved options for teachers to achieve higher student performance. We want all Hawaiians to be contributing members of the community.
We encourage Native Hawaiians and the larger community to jump into the discussion and help bring about systemic change. Changing systems is a daunting task requiring much dialogue, objective analysis, cooperation and timely action. We must also hear from our academic community, which trains the majority of our public-school teachers.
At the end of the day, the beneficiaries of these inputs will be a more informed participating public. We need to do this not just for the betterment of Native Hawaiians but for the betterment of all of Hawai'i, Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike. As a community, we deserve nothing less.
