Child Labor Is Wrong, But Apparently Not For Our School Children!
Before the outcome in the Iowa caucus, I was watching in complete disbelief the leading Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, advocating abolishing child labor laws so kids can clean toilets for ice cream.
Then I wondered if Newt will be doing a photo opt at one of our public school cafeteria鈥檚 before the March 12th Republican caucus.
That is because kids here already have to put in roughly three hours in the cafeterias, throwing out trash, cleaning tables, and serving food. The slaves are rewarded for their efforts with lunch and a small cup of shave ice.
Incredibly, there is a state administrative law that allows this happen:
搂8-37-10 . Students shall assist in the cafeteria as part of their duties in school services. Not more than one full day of cafeteria duty in any one month or more than a total of seven full days in one school year shall be required of any student. Any exception must be approved by the complex area superintendent.
Child labor is intrinsically wrong! Our students missing instruction to provide free child labor is wrong! And how does this practice possibly jibe with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and other attempts at education reform? Simply, it does not!
That is not all that it does not conflict. Another law that went into effect this year for some schools and is soon to be enforced in every school. Former Gov. Linda Lingle had mandated 36 furlough days for all state workers. This poor cost-cutting decision drew angry criticism from unions, teachers, parents, democrats, and U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
A knee-jerk reaction to Lingle鈥檚 furloughs from the Legislature was passage of Act 167, a law that mandated minimum amount of 180 instructional days. The law required elementary schools to have at least 915 hours of instruction or five hours a day in 2011. In 2013, all schools must expand their instructional time to 1,080 hours in the school year or 1,525 a week.
At my school, we are looking at the bell schedule to figure out how to be in compliance. Some schools are labeling recess as instructional time under physical education. Other schools are shortening a much needed recess. But then it came to me: How are students receiving 1,525 minutes a week of instruction if they are pulled out to work in the school cafeteria for two or more hours at a time?
I realize this has happened over many generations, but parents and teachers have been complaining about this policy for a long time. Kids leave and come back to class completely missing out on multiple lessons.
Consider its inequality. Like no other state, roughly 17 percent of students here attend private school. I made a call to Seabury on Maui, Punahou on Oahu, and the King Kamehameha schools. You better believe if you鈥檙e forking out private school money, your keiki won鈥檛 be missing any instruction time hauling out garbage! Punahou actually pays their students for the work done in the cafeteria. So the keiki born in a wealthy family get to enjoy a smaller class size as well as not being ripped out of the classroom for manual labor to save their school money. I can see the pathetic Newt Gingrich taking this a step further, saying, 鈥淪ee, kids should be cleaning our toilets. The mandated child labor in Hawaii is second to none. Look at all the money the state saves when kids aren鈥檛 receiving instruction.鈥
The Legislature has a real disconnect with the inner workings of our public schools. As a teacher I felt this piece of legislation was passed without due diligence from the field, without consideration of the domino effects that would follow. Or maybe, just maybe, the underlining theme of Act 167 was designed to flush out old practices like this one that are no longer socially acceptable.
I would love to see the practice of forced child manual labor in our school cafeteria鈥檚 repealed because of Act 167, but if this happens, someone has to be paid from already stripped public school budgets to perform the labor. Currently, it is really hard to get anyone to even clean classrooms for near minimum wage, the prevailing compensation for classroom cleaners. I would suggest a long overdue, raise in the weighted student formula to offset the loss of slave labor.
About the author: Justin Hughey is a special education teacher on Maui.
