FOCUS ON EDUCATION
Can we close the educational gap in Hawai'i?

By David P. Ericson

No society has been able to include lower-status groups, proportionately speaking, in its educational system until after upper- and middle-status groups have "saturated" the system and seized the advantages of education.

Hawai'i is no exception.

Since the 19th century, the children of missionaries, white businessmen and ali'i Native Hawaiians were the first entrants into the system of private and public schools established for them. Second- and third-generation Chinese and Japanese children whose parents sacrificed mightily to ensure that they would escape the plantation followed.

After the fall of the kingdom and establishment of English as the sole language of instruction, maka'ainana Native Hawaiians, Filipinos and later immigrants from parts of Asia and the Pacific islands came to form the "group of last entry" into the educational system.

The group of last entry's limited acquisition of standard English effectively barred them from participation in the select public and private schools of the era. They went to substandard schools, if they went at all, and achieved well below more advantaged peers. And they dropped out of school in disproportionate numbers.

The "educational gap" disclosed itself at our territorial beginning; and it is with us yet today.

Is this educational gap a problem for us? Most would say that it poses a serious issue of social inequity, as well as undercutting the potential productivity of our citizens. Why should socioeconomic criteria define the group of last entry?

Under most conceptions of distributive justice, we should assume that the group of last entry will be defined only by educationally relevant criteria such as ability, tenacity and choice. For example, if educational ability is randomly distributed throughout the population — as we assume it is — then social class, race, ethnicity, etc., should be irrelevant in determining who benefits the most from education. If no class, race or ethnicity has a monopoly on ability, then these should not be indicators of educational advantage or disadvantage.

Yet that is not how the system behaves. The group of last entry, defined by lower socio-economic status, has lagged perpetually behind higher-status students in educational achievement and attainment.

This is not to say things have not improved. Our educational system, both public and private, has been quite successful in overcoming one form of unequal educational opportunity: Every child now has access to a school.

And we continue to address a second form of inequality in education: schools with roughly equal educational resources and facilities. Although Hawai'i's public schools never will close the gap with a Punahou, we know what it will take to provide decent schools with decent resources and facilities.

Still, overcoming a third form of inequality will continue to challenge us: removing socioeconomic status as an indicator of educational achievement and attainment.

Even if we are successful in attaining 100 percent completion of the high school diploma for the group of last entry, higher-status students will preserve their educational advantage by moving higher in the educational system, as they do now. leveling field

But what of educational achievement — can that gap be closed? There are several ways of doing this.

One way is to take steps to lower the achievement levels of socially advantaged students to that of the group of last entry (as Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution attempted to do). Doubtless, that would be considered immoral and illegal, and it certainly would dim Hawai'i's future.

The second way is to alter the allocation of resources to the educational system, either in size or distribution, on the assumption that the amount of resources or the way they are distributed within the system affects achievement.

Altering the allocation of resources is accomplished by raising taxes for education or redirecting a more constant budget to education.

Affecting distribution of resources is accomplished by changing the school financing formula to target the needs of the group of last entry. This is, in fact, the aim of provisions in Act 51, passed during the most recent session of the state Legislature.

Public money will now follow students to schools based on student characteristics.

The greater the student "need" (through poverty, disability, limited English ability, etc.), the greater the amount of resources at a school's service.

Will such a plan help close the gap? We do not yet know. But it has moral weight and seems worth trying.

The third way to level the playing field is to raise the group of last entry's mean achievement levels to the levels of the advantaged, using new curricular and teaching developments.

At this point, we must realize that student efforts to learn are as central to achievement as teacher efforts. Yet student effort, unlike ability, may not be distributed randomly throughout the population.

For whatever reason, the group of last entry may not be as tenacious in advancing its own learning as are more advantaged students. Laurence Steinberg (1996) has shown in a study of 20,000 public school students over a 10-year period that as much as 40 percent of them were "academically disengaged."

New approach

If we are to have any chance of closing the educational gap, we need to address this problem through new programs and practices. For example, Kamehameha Schools' recent expansion on Maui and the Big Island, and outreach initiatives to the Native Hawaiian community, are highly laudable efforts in this regard.

Also, we need to examine our large, factory-like public middle and high schools. Through educator ingenuity and will, we can create small-scale, vibrant "learning communities" by developing "schools within schools" and the like. Perhaps if we treated students more as developing individuals than as so much human material to be processed, we could reignite the desire to learn.

We have nothing to lose, and perhaps much to gain, by trying.

David P. Ericson is with the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawai'i- Manoa. Reach him at ericson@hawaii.edu.