Charter schools just allow DOE to avoid its responsibility

The Hawaii Department of Education (DOE) presumably recognizes that the vigorous charter school movement in Hawaii is driven by a total lack of confidence in the department. Many parents simply do not believe that the DOE can deliver a reasonable education to their children.

A significant proportion of them are convinced that the DOE is not doing an adequate job educating their children, is not capable of reforming itself to do an adequate job, and is unwilling to respond in meaningful way to the concerns, criticisms and suggestions of parents.

Because they are anxious to do what they believe is best for their children, many parents are willing to switch responsibility for the education of their children from the traditional public schools to the charter schools.

Some of the parents who support the charter schools believe they are removing them from the influence of the DOE. They are not. The DOE is the source of almost all of the funding that the charter schools rely on. The Charter School Commission’s website states that there were 10,440 children in 34 charter schools in the state as of Oct. 15, 2014.

It also shows that almost $73 million of state money and more than $8 million of federal money went to the charter system through the commission for a per-pupil figure of more than $7,000.

More than $80 million is diverted to the charter schools on a statewide basis. It is clear that there are enormous sums involved.

The DOE should focus on improving the quality of the education which it is obligated to provide. Instead it spends massive amounts of time, resources and money supporting an alternative form of education.

To what end?

The commission’s own 2014 annual report shows that in a "Comparison of Statewide Averages and Charter School-wide Averages" (page 201), in three categories and nine subcategories of achievement, the charter schools were higher in only one subcategory: "Reading Proficiency of Free and Reduced Lunch Students."

The DOE has never produced evidence that the charter schools that are established or that will be established are or will be better than the traditional public schools in their communities.

At a minimum, the DOE should produce evidence that the currently existing charter schools in given communities are academically superior to the traditional public schools existing in those communities.

They obviously cannot produce evidence that the new Kau charter school will be better academically than the existing traditional schools in Naalehu and Pahala. But they have based their decision to support a charter school in Kau on something.

What is that something?

The DOE needs to tell the parents of Hawaii.

The Hawaii Department of Education must stop abandoning its responsibility and accept the challenge to educate all of the children of Hawaii, rather than attempting to do it through surrogates.

John P. Milon, a resident of Volcano, Hawaii, taught full time at various educational levels from 1962 to 2002 except for four years getting a master’s degree in linguistics and a Ph.D. in educational psychology.