The Impact Of Private Schools On Public Education
Nearly one-fifth of students in Hawaii attend private schools, a figure significantly higher than the national average.
That single fact is bound to have an impact on the support for and the quality of public education in Hawaii.
It clearly means more dollars spent per-student in the public education system, given that many families pay taxes that support the schools but don’t take advantage of the service.
But it also may mean that fewer parents and policy makers than in other states support public schools, because their children don’t attend them.
Nearly 39,000, or 18 percent of Hawaii’s approximately 216,000 children in grades K-12, are enrolled in the state’s roughly 100 private schools. That’s 7 percentage points higher than the national average of 11 percent private school enrollment.
“There’s this perception that the only place to get a good education is in private schools,” Kaiser High School principal John Sosa told Civil Beat earlier this year. That’s a perception, reinforced by such debacles as Furlough Fridays, which gave the state a national educational black eye, public school advocates are fighting.
A problem for the parents left supporting Hawaii’s public system is that the private schools draw a sizable population of talented young people and remove the incentive for their parents to advocate on behalf of improving public education. It also deepens the impression that the public schools offer a relatively poor education — a perception that dates back to the 1840s, when Punahou was established to keep the children of missionaries separate from their local counterparts. Private schools became a commodity primarily for the upper classes, while public schools were a sort of ministry to the working class, and at least in some cases, a way to keep them in their place.
Today, student achievement in Hawaii public schools is significantly lower than national averages. Students in fourth and eighth grades performed six and nine percent lower, respectively, than their peers on the 2008 . And fewer students in Hawaii take on additional academic challenges such as Advanced Placement courses.
Nailing down the exact number and percentage of students who attend private school in Hawaii is complicated, because the three main sources for such data offer conflicting reports. The , the licensing body for all Hawaii’s private schools, reported 39,344 students were enrolled in private institutions for the 2008-09 school year. But the Hawaii Department of Education in its recorded a significantly lower private school enrollment that year: 35,715.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey numbers are different still, with its own estimate of the total school-age population. It is worth noting that although American Community Survey report closely aligned with the numbers released by the council, this year it estimated 21 percent of K-12 students were enrolled in private institutions. Our calculations (based on enrollment numbers already reported) estimate it to be 18 percent.
Because the council has released its , the department won’t do the same until February next year and the Census numbers are based partially on estimates and projections, we are relying on the council figures for the purposes of this article.
The Geography of Private Schooling
The distribution of students attending private schools is not equal throughout the state, said Lois Yamauchi, an educational psychology professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa .
In fact, more than 21,000 of the 39,000 private schoolers are located in the Honolulu district, according to the by the Hawaii Council of Private Schools.
The Honolulu district is one of four complex areas on Oahu and it includes the Farrington-Kaiser-Kalani and Kaimuki-McKinley-Roosevelt complexes. All of Oahu’s districts account for more than 29,800 private school students.
“It’s not 18 percent across the state, and I think it’s a misconception that everybody is sending their kids to private schools,” Yamauchi told Civil Beat. “A lot of parents in Honolulu are, but if you go to other communities, most people tend to send theirs to public schools.”
Yamauchi has two children in the public school system — a 9-year-old at and a 12-year-old at , a public charter school.
The distribution of private schoolers throughout grades K-12 is fairly even, despite some theories that more parents send their children to private school beginning in middle or high school.
Brain Drain And Hemorrhaging Support: Myths?
Many parents, teachers and school administrators express concern that private schools are attracting smart kids away from public schools. Because private schools don’t participate in most of the state and national measures for student progress, such as the Hawaii State Assessment and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it’s difficult to verify this. This is a concern because the impact would be to lower the overall quality of students in public schools.
“I don’t think it has a major impact,” said Hawaii State Board of Education member Donna Ikeda, whose two children attended and graduated from public schools. “I think when people make comparisons between private school kids and public school kids, and the fact that the private school kids seem to be higher achieving — that’s where the damage comes in.”
Ikeda said private school enrollment has less to do with educational aptitude than it has to do with income.
“If parents can afford to pay the high tuition and send their kids to private schools, they do,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean the students are from the top echelon of intelligence, so to speak. I think it goes back, quite honestly, to the plantation days, when there was a separation between the schools for local kids versus the more wealthy.”
Ikeda’s speculation is supported in University of Hawaii education professor Ann Bayer’s book “.” The book examines the assumptions many make about Hawaii’s public and private schools, and advocates supporting public schools.
Many families make great sacrifices to flee the public system — working extra jobs and moving back in with grandparents, for example. This leaves some public school parents, including more than one Civil Beat member, feeling deserted.
“Is there ever going to be the support the public schools need when private education is so strongly preferred by such a large chunk of the population — especially when it is composed of the most wealthy, influential and educated?” asked James Wright in a discussion thread on the site.
But several private schools provide services and support systems for public school students and faculty.
Punahou School initiatives include to serve public school students. is devoted to building collaborative relationships between private and public school educators. Punahou faculty also many curricular resources with other teachers.
What If Private Schoolers Entered The Public System?
Last year, the Hawaii Department of Education‘s initial $2.2 billion1 budget amounted to roughly $12,700 per public school student, based on an early enrollment figure of 173,000. But official enrollment ended up at 179,000, bringing the per-student expenditure to around $12,300.
If all 39,000 private school students were to be placed suddenly in public schools, it would severely jar the system, bringing per-student expenditures down to about $10,100 — a $2,200 reduction.
But let’s make the hypothetical more believable by pretending Hawaii’s private school enrollment were closer to the national average: 11 percent. That would leave 24,000 students in private schools and 15,000 looking for other alternatives.
If even those 15,000 private school students joined their peers in public school next year, the department would spend about $11,300 for each student. That’s before factoring in any budget cuts the education department might face. The was $9,683 for the 2006-07 school year, the most recent one the has data for. But Hawaii’s high cost of living makes it difficult to compare per-pupil expenditures in a helpful manner.
And an influx of new students would overload existing facilities, possibly requiring construction of new ones.
“If we had an increase in students, we would have to have an increase in budget, definitely,” said Ikeda, who serves on the education board’s Committee on Budget & Fiscal Accountability.
Yamauchi said the financial problem might solve itself, though.
“When you think of the 18 percent who have chosen private schools, those families also bring a lot of resources to the schools,” she said. ‘I think adding a family that comes with a lot of resources in terms of involvement and fundraising efforts isn’t going to burden the system. It’s going to enhance the system.”
So Who Cares About Public Schools?
One of the more controversial aspects of the disproportionate use of private schools is how many legislators and other public education decision-makers have removed their children from the public schools.
A earlier this year revealed half of Hawaii’s policymakers send their children to private schools, and that “nearly two-thirds of state lawmakers never had a child enrolled in the public school system they oversee.”
Yamauchi said many public school teachers and principals also send their children to private schools.
The impact of these choices is that they not only further stigmatize public education, but that public education also loses considerable investment from those who run it, Yamauchi said. She speaks from experience, she added. When she had children, her work in the College of Education took on a new and personal importance.
“If you don’t have confidence in your own institution, then people start to worry,” she said. “I think that it’s really a detriment when you don’t have your own children in the system. I think you lose investment and commitment to that system. If the people who are making the laws and decisions on educational policy don’t have their own kids in the system, they are not the same decisions they would make for their own children.”
On the other hand, the lack of support for public schools may be less the responsibility of parents who left for private institutions than it is of those who remain.
The Kaiser High School Parent-Teacher-Student Association was on “life support” when Sosa arrived as its new principal a few years ago, he said. Participation for the first fundraiser he organized was at 15 percent. (Since then, the PTSA has gained momentum and “is on a roll,” he said.)
Support from parents within the public system has been flagging for years and only recently received a burst of energy from the Furlough Fridays crisis. Out of that controversy sprang at least three new parent and community organizations aimed at drumming up support for public schools: , and .
Yamauchi is one of a group working to establish a chapter in Hawaii to help sustain efforts promoting public education. Anyone interested may attend the group’s next meeting from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Oct. 23 at the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies.
