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Glen, if you just simply look at the amount of money being spent, you might think the schools are well-funded. But if you look closer and see what they spend it on, look out! Facilities construction and maintenance costs are artificially high due to a number of factors, including, but not limited to, byzantine bidding procedures, requirements that contractors pay union scale wages even if not unionized, occasional bid rigging, sometimes corruption, and other good old boy techniques. Teacher pay is barely adequate for singles, and, as others have noted, not really sufficient to raise a family.

There are no local school boards, and the economies of scale that one might expect from such a centralized arrangement are lost due to inept long-distance management from Honolulu. The charter schools, which have shown some promising results, are not funded to the same extent as the poorer performing regular schools. (Success and innovation must be punished and suppressed at all costs, being threats to the bureaucratic norm.) In addition to a lower funding formula, the number of charter schools and public-to-charter conversions is restricted to a level far short of the demand.

Add to all the above a reputation for racial discord and hooliganism in some of the East Hawaii schools (Kea'au High has had some particularly nasty incidents,) and you don't get a pretty picture.

Other people have less negative opinions, but that's mine based on conversations with educators and postings here on Punaweb.

Not so cheerful on this subject,
Jerry



Edited by - JerryCarr on 10/14/2007 15:35:40

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