Private school enrollment shrinks in favor of public charter schools

Enrollment in Hawaii’s private schools fell 12 percent over the last decade, a notable drop in a state where private education has long been highly prized.

Meanwhile, the number of students in public charter schools shot up 77 percent, as new campuses popped up across the islands, shifting Hawaii’s educational landscape.

The new charters are offering things that parents often seek in private schools, including small class sizes and innovative teaching methods. And the price is right. Like other public schools, charters charge no tuition.

Fourteen-year-old Hailey Bradley was accepted to Mid-Pacific Institute, one of the state’s top private schools, but opted instead to enroll as a freshman in a new charter that opened down the hill from her home in Makakilo in August.

“I chose to go to Kapolei Charter School because I wanted a good education, and over here you get a private school education while having a public school atmosphere,” said Hailey, who wound up being elected student council president.

“When I came for the open house for the school, it had like a different feeling from other schools,” she added. “It felt like a good environment and I felt like I fit in best here.”

Traditional public schools still account for 80 percent of overall K-12 enrollment statewide, the same fraction as a decade ago. But the share of students in private schools has shrunk to 15 percent from 17 percent, while public charters now educate 5 percent, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser data analysis.

The downward trend in private school enrollment dates back to the 2008 financial crisis, which forced many parents to take a hard look at their pocketbooks.

Since then, 17 private elementary and secondary schools have closed across the state, largely due to low enrollment and financial difficulties, including two that gave up their grade schools but continue as preschools. In June, another one, St. Anthony School in Kalihi, will cease operations after 90 years of providing Catholic education.

The exodus includes other long-lived institutions such as Cathedral Catholic Academy, which shut down in 2016 after 80 years at its Nuuanu site. Also bowing out a few years ago were Academy of the Pacific in Alewa Heights and Our Redeemer Lutheran School in Manoa, both dating back more than half a century.

Statewide, 32,888 students were enrolled in private elementary and secondary schools in the last academic year, the most recent data available, down from 37,371 in the 2007-08 school year, according to the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools.

“There was a shrinking,” Philip Bossert, acting executive director of the association, said. “We think part of it came from the growth in charter schools because, basically, I’d say charter schools are like publicly funded private schools. I mean, they have boards, they do fundraising, they have their own curriculum.”

The Hawaii Association of Independent Schools has been working to get the word out to parents about the wide range of private schools in the state and what they offer — and not just the well-known price tag for the most prestigious ones.

“The board decided about five years ago that we really need to market private education,” Bossert said. “We’ve done a lot more marketing on radio, in the newspaper. We started sending the private school guide to every doctor and dentist office and real estate office in the state. We have this big education fair every year.”

The effort may be paying off as there was a slight uptick of 94 students in private school between 2016 and 2017.

In demand

Meanwhile, enrollment in the charter sector surged to 10,634 students from 6,003 over the 2008-2017 decade, and then jumped again this school year by 526 students to 11,160 total.

Nine new charter schools have opened since 2008 and two more expect to launch this fall: DreamHouse Ewa Beach and Alakai O Kauai. Charter schools operate under a contract or “charter” with the state Public Charter School Commission, but report to their own governing boards rather than the state Board of Education.

“There still seems to be demand for schools of choice,” said Sione Thompson, executive director of the Public Charter School Commission. “When I talk to the community and I visit the schools, one of the things that constantly comes up is they are very much appreciative of class size being manageable. Safety is one thing and innovation — what you can push out when you’re not overpopulated.”

Mitch D’Olier keeps close tabs on Hawaii’s education pipeline as a member of the Public Charter School Commission and as chairman of the board of the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, which works to put low-income youth on a path to success.

“Depending upon how much money you have, it’s a lot harder to invest money in a private education with some of the great choices that public and charter schools are now offering,” D’Olier said in an interview. “The public schools are demonstrably better than they used to be. They just flat-out are.”

Public schools in East Honolulu as well as Ewa Beach, for example, offer the rigorous International Baccalaureate curriculum, a world-renowned approach used in independent schools such as Mid-Pacific Institute, Le Jardin Academy in Kailua and Island Pacific Academy in Kapolei.

Other public high schools have career academies and Early College offerings that help steer kids to success beyond high school. D’Olier also cited improvement in Hawaii’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

Enrollment in Hawaii’s regular public schools has largely tracked demographics, slipping 1.8 percent over the 2008-2017 decade in line with the decline in the overall school-aged population, so the fraction of kids served remains the same.

Private tradition

Private schools have played a major role in education in the islands since the 1800s, with the founding of Punahou and ‘Iolani by missionaries and later Kamehameha Schools through a bequest from Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop.

And the proportion of students attending private schools in Hawaii today, at 15 percent, still remains well above the national average, which was 10 percent in 2015, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The sector hardest hit by slumping enrollment, here and nationally, is Catholic schools, reflecting the decline in the number of active members of the church and rising costs as school staff has shifted from religious to lay people.

“For the last 10 years, our overall enrollment has gone down about 3 percent a year and that follows the national trend, too, for Catholic schools,” said Hawaii Catholic Schools Superintendent Mike Rockers.

He said he hopes to educate the public about the “cutting edge” instruction offered at Catholic schools these days.

“We’re strong in STEM curriculum, we understand engaging students in various types of project-based learning,” he said. “What we do is designed to develop the whole child — that means socially, that means spiritually as well as academically. I need to do a better job as superintendent in marketing these great schools.”