Welcome
Everyone has an opinion about education and they seem more than happy to share it. Of course, we don’t always agree. It is a matter of our personal experiences and perspectives. Nelson Mandela called education the most powerful tool you can use to change the world, while Mark Twain joked that he never let his schooling interfere with his education.
One thing we can all agree upon: We all want our children to have the best education possible — one that will help them to achieve their potential in life, no matter which path they choose.
Our kids in Hawaii deserve our best efforts to give them a good start on life, and we have a unique opportunity to do just that. With a culturally rich and ethnically diverse student population, Hawaii represents a microcosm of the world’s future. We have teachers, principals and administrators deeply committed to equipping our children with the knowledge and skills they’ll need. We have a Board of Education responsible for setting policies and standards to ensure all children a quality education, regardless of their economic background or ZIP code. What’s more, we have a long and deeply rooted tradition of collaboration and cooperation among our citizens. We already know and agree that the education and welfare of our children is a collective responsibility in which every community stakeholder plays an essential role. By working together, coordinating and aligning our efforts, we have the potential to realize a world-class education system reminiscent of our heritage and worthy of national even global emulation.
We believe Hawaii’s education system can flourish. To accomplish this, we need to act now and to be as smart about education in Hawaii as we want our children to be.
We hope you’ll frequent our Website and join the growing numbers who support, expect and demand excellence in Hawaii’s public schools. For our part, we will ensure that this site serves as a portal to guide and assist you in your efforts to support your student(s), school(s) and our Board & Department of Education in this odyssey.
January 15th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Roy help educate and transform the unions that you are so ingrained too.. they are one big reason of many that keep change stagnant.. they only look out for their little circle meanwhile the world passes us by.. tell them that security is in education not the banding of bandits together to intimidate.
July 4th, 2011 at 2:25 am
thank you tom from ‘ahuimanu. i don’t believe that the problem lies only with mis-communication. there are bad administrators and boards and department heads. i’m sorry, but no child left behind seems to be a convenient “cop out.” i was a teacher for the doe. i was there when we had to meet for many hours on the new standards. our suggestions didn’t matter in the end. it’s just as ridiculous as it was…only now, it’s even harder to understand. the system was just as bad before no child left behind.
October 28th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
This website could serve to generate dynamic changes in the manner in which we provide public schooling for our children. I am hopeful that this will cause us to rethink how public education should be provided in the 21st century. Today’s environment is far different from the days when Hawaii’s school system was established. We have a far different society … both parents working … no semblence of the days when students worked in the canneries or in other jobs over the summer … strong ties that bound students to their communities … college education being a required for professional develiopment of both boys and girls … greater number of immigrants from throughout the Pacific Rim … computers over textbooks … drugs versus alcohol … information technology and etc. But there still remains similarities from the past such as the need for students who can read, add/subtract, and write … people who are talented in skilled work … well balanced people who live by the golden rule of doing unto others as you would want them to do unto to you …. appreciation for the arts/history/literature … etc. The publci school system must adjust and while the idea of ensuring that all of our children recive a quality education no matter where they live, let’s face it, we must break the system down to smaller components that can be better managed by a number of smaller groups rather than a single central group. We must build a system that can function and respond to meet today’s demands. Perhaps this website can spur the changes needed.
February 14th, 2010 at 7:32 am
The current policy and methodology of the education system does not provide value added results for the benefit of the individual student. I would suggest a return to the concentration of teaching resources to basic education subjects, taught in a way to engage young developing minds.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I agree with Delores. They address “focus” but then they cut back hours at our school?
Another issue. This new track school schedule? “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. I didn’t see anything wrong with the “traditional” schedule. kids can’t commit to summcer jobs anymore, parents leaving kids home because they can’t take off from work every two weeks? some not as fortunate as others to have ‘baby sitter’s or income to put in programs every break that comes up.
THank you Learning Coaliation hope these get forwarded to our BOE/DOE.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Why are you supporting the union on the issue of drug testing? The teachers agreed to the testing and now are backing off. Just implement and pay for it. Or give back the pay raises. Better yet, disband the union and divert the dues to testing.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I am a classroom teacher in a “restructured” elementary school in Kona and am passionate about what I do, and the challenges we face. I firmly believe that No Child Left Behind has harmed more than helped public education, in the narrowing of the curriculum and the focus put on standardized tests. In these times, it seems that if you make the test your professional priority, then you are okay. If you believe, as I do, that this draws us away from what really matters, then you struggle to maintain a sense of integrity. I thank you for your efforts. I hope we can forge some kind of alliance.
October 5th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
A big Thank YOU to the folks who began this website. It’s so important to people to begin talking about what can be done to improve our education system in Hawaii. I happened to see your ad in a Honolulu paper. But since I live on the Big Island, I’m wondering if you ever advertise in OUR local papers: Hawaii Tribune-Herald (Hilo), The West Hawaii News (Kona), or the local papers (Hamakua Times, North Kohala News) or the alternative papers? If not, Please consider it.
October 5th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Amen to Tom from Ahuimanu. I fully support a total revamp of the DOE (Dept of Educ). It is simply NOT WORKING. It’s a HUGE, dysfunctional organization, with no will to make actual changes. We need to completely reoganize the DOE –starting by electing non-DOE biased citizens to the group that is SUPPOSED TO oversee the DOE, the Board of Education! I say, vote OUT every incumbant. It’s past time for a real change!
September 25th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Thanks for this work. The website content was an invaluable source of information on the BOE candidates leading up to the primary, and helped me to feel much more confident in casting my votes this time around.
Would love to see a non-partisan source of information such as yours to help clarify individual issues that get put on the ballot in future elections. Have experienced challenges in finding a clear and central source of information when these come up…room to expand, perhaps.
Keep up the good work…will follow your updates into the general election.
September 20th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Today is the day
September 18th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I commend everyone involved with The Learning Coalition! It’s a great resource for the community to weigh in on what really is the most basic function of society: the education of our children.
I know I will be coming back to this website to learn more about what can be done to improve our educational system.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I am editor of our professional newsletter for health and physical education teachers in Hawaii–Hawaii Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Our primary function is to improve physical education and health education in our schools, public and private, K-12.
Although physical education and health education are required in the public school curriculum, they receive minimal opportunity to service the needs of our school age children. Specialist teachers are not assigned at the public elementary school, middle school physical education is an elective, and high school is a two credit requirement. Personally, I have worked to change this situation for 45 years, and all we have received is lip service from the Board of Education, the Legislators, and the Department of Education administration. I would like to note that art and music are in the same boat as far as teachers and programs are concerned. No Child Left Behind has reduced what gains we made over decades.
As you point out, voters do not know the BOE candidates. Our organization would like to survey the candidates chosen for the general election next week to find out where they stand on basic issues relevant to our programs, and to share the information with our professional membership. As health through a lifetime of physical activity is the ultimate goal of our programs, we think Hawaii students should be prepared in this endeavor as much as in technological and scientific knowledge.
We invite you to embrace our cause as part of the overall improvement of the Hawaii Public School System.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
As a parent whose child is in his fifth grade year at a public charter school,I firstly am seriously concerned about the decisions that the BOE has made regarding the cutting of funding to charter schools even though many charter schools provide a higher quality of education overall. Why aren’t they instead looking at what makes these schools work better? I now face the nerve wracking decision about where to send my child to middle school many of which are considered failing schools. Talk is cheap…enough talk already… it’s time to reevaluate those who are currently serving on the BOE. How many of the current BOE members have or have had children who attended private schools instead of a public school. It is a safe bet to say that given the current state of Hawaii’s public school system that it is a broken system led by people who appear to be completely not invested in allowing for the changes that will help fix the school system. I am single parent with a child who is a straight A student. My child deserves a quality education and as taxpayer I should not have to lose sleep over worry that I might not be able to provide that education for my child. I want to thank whoever is behind this site and it is my hope that the parents of Hawaii this time will go beyond the familiar name or the popular vote and really vote for those people who will REALLY bring some much needed changes into the Hawaii public school system!!
September 12th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I saw The Learning Coalition ad in MidWeek, and just checked out the website. I really don’t think “Everyone has an opinion about our public school system…” because opinions are based on good information — a scarce commodity in this discussion. But I do get the feeling many of us have an impression. As I think most would agree, it is not a good impression.
My take is that the DOE is a self-serving bureaucracy with poor leadership. After all, does it not put its own administrative needs and demands ahead of what happens in the classroom? (Why doesn’t the DOE cut its own administrative budget before it even considers robbing programs from students?) The BOE, too, has been highly ineffective. Both are “very busy”. But, ultimately, ineffective. Period.
Let’s keep it simple. If the DOE is failing, why continue its existence? At least, not in its current form. If the BOE is ineffective, let’s reshape it. Take it from a top-down statewide posture to a grassroots model firmly planted at the community level.
As a parent of both private and public high school students, my focus has been and still is the high schools themselves. If it is our assumed goal to have public high school students experience sound learning, graduate and earn the choice of attending college or not, then let’s put our combined focus on our high schools. And design around them a true support mechanism — call it whatever you wish — that allows them to succeed.
By that, I believe that each public high school should be firmly grounded in and supported by its own community in its day-to-day functioning. And certainly not by the state, other than have a state administrative process distribute tax dollars back to the schools. Make each high school’s community its own school district. Include its “feeder” schools — intermediate and grade schools.
The legislature would fund each school district based on the number of all potential school-age students living within that school district’s geographic boundary. Each school district would have its own (community-based) board of education which would be elected by voters in that school district community. At the same time, the state legislative representatives involved with those communities would be more accountable to and involved in his or her public schools.
The constitutionally-mandated DOE would need to be “reborn” (i.e., totally dismantled, and then reorganized in a streamlined fashion) to support its community-based school districts. This administration would truly work for the schools, and not mandate to them from the top down.
We need to get our communities directly and actively involved with their public schools at all levels. The formalized state education community (DOE/BOE) has failed its island and neighborhood communities. We have already proved that the nation’s only statewide public school system is an utter disaster. We need to stop putting Band-Aides on this brain hemorrhage.
If we don’t, the total collapse of our public education system is not too distant. Of course, under current circumstances, the DOE and BOE would just love to keep us all only more confused with a lot of bluster, studies, activities and typical bureaucratic blundering. After all, that’s what the DOE and its BOE really do, which only creates environments for failure. Just visit a few public school campuses…it’s right there in front of you.