June 21, 2004

Separate But Equal

Only in Hawaii would you have this... The eduational standardized tests in Hawaiian. A living language certainly, but one that is only spoken here in this tiny island chain. We have charter Schools that teach children ONLY in Hawaiian, and now the government will test them in Hawaiian... Balkanization at its very best...

Here is the article

Sunday, Jun 20, 2004
New laws will advance Hawaiian schools


By HUNTER BISHOP
Students can opt for standardized tests in Hawaiian

Gov. Linda Lingle signed two public education bills into law Friday at a press conference held at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

One bill would allow students in Hawaiian immersion programs to take the state's standardized assessment tests in Hawaiian instead of English. The other authorizes a feasibility study for setting up separate school districts for charter schools.

"While these bills are not completely specific to Hilo, or the University of Hawaii at Hilo, ... (they) will impact programs here at UH and 'Aha Punana Leo statewide," Lingle said.

Kalena Silva, director of Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani, the College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, called it a "historic" day in his 20-year involvement in the Hawaiian language movement. The first bill "will help us move programs forward," he said, "and more accurately assess students' work."

It authorizes the state Department of Education to establish an instructional program that will allow students to meet the state's education standards through the medium of the Hawaiian language. It also establishes student eligibility requirements, and allows for the creation of a new oversight office.

The bill also directs the DOE to "work collaboratively" with the UH-Hilo Language College on developing the program.

Students currently enrolled in Hawaiian language immersion programs must take the state standardized tests in English.

UH-Hilo's College of Hawaiian Language instructors would help develop the tests and officials have already laid the groundwork for the project within the DOE, said Hawaii language and culture professor Larry Kimura.

The key word in the bill is "may," however, he said. The legislation does not obligate the DOE to do anything, although Kimura believes state DOE officials are "anxious" to develop the program.

"We need to work with them," he said. "This is all very new."

Mililani Hughes, vice principal of Ke Kula O Nawahiokalani'opu'u Iki Lab School, a DOE Hawaiian language immersion school in Keaau, said some of her graduates now attend universities such as Stanford and Loyola Marymount. "Yes, they can compete in an all-English college," Hughes said.

Hawaiian program students have been doing well on the English-language tests, Kimura said, and the language college professors would like to find out if students will do better overall on tests written in Hawaiian than they do on the English-language version.

"We should have our own standards," Kimura said.

About 2,000 students are enrolled in Hawaiian language immersion programs statewide, Hughes said. "It has become a living language ... it's a beautiful thing."

The private dining room on the campus where the press conference was held Friday morning was packed with students, faculty and administrators from the College of Hawaiian Studies and its affiliated programs, including 'Aha Punana Leo, who greeted Lingle on her arrival at Hilo campus.

The second bill Lingle signed Friday would launch a study of creating two separate school districts for charter schools. One district would encompass all of the Hawaiian language and culture charter schools in the state. The other district would include the remaining non-Hawaiian charter schools in Hawaii.

The Lingle administration had proposed to the Legislature a bill that would have established a single separate school district in Hawaii for all charter schools, but the Legislature did not pass that bill. The bill she signed Friday is a "step in the right direction," Lingle said.

One-half of the state's 26 charter schools are native Hawaiian-based cultural programs, and "charter schools, bottom line, provide choices for parents," Lingle said. "Options are important. We all learn in different ways."

The study, to be prepared by the Legislative Reference Bureau, should be finished before the next legislative session.

Both measures signed Friday were passed unanimously by the state Legislature earlier this year.

Hunter Bishop can be reached at hunter@hawaiitribune-herald.com


I cant for the life of me understand this. Our children need to be educated in English the official language of the United States, by the way, and the ligua franca of the world at large. We are setting these kids up for a great disapointment as they enter the work place in a few years and realized that 99.99 percent of the people in Hawaii let alone the world do not speak Hawaiian and do not conduct business in it. I guess that is one way to insure a posse of maids, cooks and dancers for the tourists enjoyment. I think its also a plan to keep little Keone and Pualani home on the island insted of them leaving to work on the mainland where there are jobs and a life... if you have a grasp of the English language.

Yes perhaps some of the kids do go on to Higher Education off island...but they were educated in English first... This is a old program and now only a few of the current children have been to none emmersion schools...I think its wrong to do this and set up a separate but equal system within a system. We have seen how well that works...Just ask those that grew up prior to Brown vs. Board of Education