The View from Austin: Hawaii Instructional Hours Put Kids at a Disadvantage
I am following the discussion of Act 167 (delay of the instructional hours law) from afar. I am in Austin with family. We laugh as we read the Austin paper together, the issues so similar to Hawaii, and note with interest:
路 The Republican Governor has just issued a proclamation for “Days of Prayer for Rain”.
路 The first leg of their rail project will cost over $200 million.
路 The Superintendent of Education may turn down her $25,000 bonus, she makes $283,000.
路 Nine schools are identified for closure.
路 The Senate discusses raiding $3 Billion from the rainy day fund.
The next day comes and my niece goes to school. She starts at 8 a.m. and is finished at 3:30 p.m. She is in school for seven and a half hours. And I think, why are we struggling so hard with the concept of the importance of instructional time in Hawaii?
I google Austin High School bell schedule. They start school at 9 a.m. and get out at 4:15 p.m. They have four instructional blocks of 90 minutes each (six hours of instructional time a day). We have high schools with less than four and a half hours of instructional time a day.
How can a student in one of our Hawaii schools compete against a student from Austin who is getting 90 minutes more instructional time a day? Seven hours and thirty minutes more a week. I look at that over a year, over 12 years.
And I think, what am I missing? Why is this something we have to sell? Why is this not just common sense? And, why after a year of discussion, don’t we know how to define instructional time?!?
I am told “we must focus on quality not quantity”. And, I agree. But, who knows how to quantify what makes a quality teacher, who agrees on how to evaluate a quality teacher, or even how to train a quality teacher?
So, in the meantime, why can’t we focus on quantity? Then the students with quality teachers will at least have enough time to succeed.
I think about the multi-track schools and am again mystified. Why are their legislative representatives fighting for their students to get less instructional time than non-track students? Is this what the parents (voters) want? Really?
Every other state with multi-track schools insists on either the same amount of days or longer school days.
The CAS says we can’t have longer school days because “children need time to be children”, the Athletic Director says “extra-curricular activities may be affected”, HSTA says “put it off until 2018”. Really?
And then I think, why am I up at 3 a.m. in Austin, on vacation, writing this? Go to sleep.
About the author: Melanie Bailey is a professional in the field of Human Resources. As a life long community volunteer she began public school advocacy after furloughs were announced. She has been following legislation aimed at improving education since.
