#1 Cost of Doing Business in Hawaii?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Kay on August 21, 2009 at 8:12pm

That's always an option for those that have the qualifications and time. This looks like an interesting educational alternative: http://joomla.ethompson.org/

John said:

Is there any interest in doing home schooling? Given that this is a technology community and given the tremendous advances being made in on-line education, it would seem home schooling would be a promising approach to reduce the costs and shortcomings of the local public educational system.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Berkun on August 21, 2009 at 8:40pm

Peter Kay I'm disappointed in you! You can not compare your out of pocket expense with the actual cost of schooling per child. You should know better. Stick with the actual cost or you're comparing apples and oranges. I'm willing to bet that $10K is not the actual cost per child for the school, so don't compare it with the $15K per child for public school.



Peter Kay said:

Sign up your kid. Do they have a carnival perhaps? Sure. Do they have voluntary funds (e.g. for a new building)? sure. No more or less than any public school's bake sale. But $10k is "all" you have to pay out of your pocket for a top-notch education.

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Permalink Reply by Branden Tanga on August 22, 2009 at 6:00pm

There are serious drawbacks to home schooling however.

* While you get to teach what YOU want, from my anecdotal experience with home schooled peers, the strengths and faults of the parents become the strengths and faults of the children. You'd never have someone better than you at math teaching your child math. You'd never have someone better than you at language composition teaching your child language composition. You could hire private tutors for all those things, but then aren't you just creating your own school, and would be better off putting that money towards Iolani or Punahou? In the age of the internet, there is more 'content' at your disposal, but you may not have the experience and skillset to guide your child through a particular category of education.

* Social development tends to be lacking in home schooled children. This is just due to the fact that home schooled children don't get many opportunities to meet as many people. No matter how many team sports a home schooled child plays, nothing beats the day in and day out interaction with their peers. I had a few classmates who were home schooled and their parents put them in public high school to 'finish' their education. In hindsight, they were perfectly normal and more intelligent than average. However at the time they were 'weird', because their mannerisms were just a little bit off, their responses to situations just not quite the same as the other kids. In the game of social survival of the fittest, they did not have the proper skills to thrive. I'm sure now they're all well adjusted adults, but I'm 100% positive high school was a horrible time for them.

John said:

Is there any interest in doing home schooling? Given that this is a technology community and given the tremendous advances being made in on-line education, it would seem home schooling would be a promising approach to reduce the costs and shortcomings of the local public educational system.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Kay on August 23, 2009 at 8:16pm

Ken, I'm not sure what numbers you're counting besides our out of pocket numbers. A pocket is a pocket. Whether that pocket pays for private school or taxes to public school, that's what the cost is. Grants and endowments and the like might play a role but if anything, public schools would qualify for more of this kind of aid than private. I'm not sure why you're rejecting a 10k cost/child for private school and the 15k/cost child for public school. Those are the numbers. You may not like them. But they are what they are.

Ken Berkun said:

Peter Kay I'm disappointed in you! You can not compare your out of pocket expense with the actual cost of schooling per child. You should know better. Stick with the actual cost or you're comparing apples and oranges. I'm willing to bet that $10K is not the actual cost per child for the school, so don't compare it with the $15K per child for public school.



Peter Kay said:

Sign up your kid. Do they have a carnival perhaps? Sure. Do they have voluntary funds (e.g. for a new building)? sure. No more or less than any public school's bake sale. But $10k is "all" you have to pay out of your pocket for a top-notch education.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Berkun on August 23, 2009 at 8:19pm

Hey this is interesting, from the NY Times:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-ed...

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom



Branden Tanga said:

There are serious drawbacks to home schooling however.

* While you get to teach what YOU want, from my anecdotal experience with home schooled peers, the strengths and faults of the parents become the strengths and faults of the children. You'd never have someone better than you at math teaching your child math. You'd never have someone better than you at language composition teaching your child language composition. You could hire private tutors for all those things, but then aren't you just creating your own school, and would be better off putting that money towards Iolani or Punahou? In the age of the internet, there is more 'content' at your disposal, but you may not have the experience and skillset to guide your child through a particular category of education.

* Social development tends to be lacking in home schooled children. This is just due to the fact that home schooled children don't get many opportunities to meet as many people. No matter how many team sports a home schooled child plays, nothing beats the day in and day out interaction with their peers. I had a few classmates who were home schooled and their parents put them in public high school to 'finish' their education. In hindsight, they were perfectly normal and more intelligent than average. However at the time they were 'weird', because their mannerisms were just a little bit off, their responses to situations just not quite the same as the other kids. In the game of social survival of the fittest, they did not have the proper skills to thrive. I'm sure now they're all well adjusted adults, but I'm 100% positive high school was a horrible time for them.

John said:

Is there any interest in doing home schooling? Given that this is a technology community and given the tremendous advances being made in on-line education, it would seem home schooling would be a promising approach to reduce the costs and shortcomings of the local public educational system.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Berkun on August 23, 2009 at 8:23pm

Peter, sorry if I was not clear. You said "$10K out of pocket" which implied that the pocket was yours and that was what you were comparing to the total cost of running the school per child. If you mean the total cost per child is $10K including money from endowments, grants, free services (such as reduced rent), etc, then that is the number that should be compared with $15K (which you are probably right is really higher for public school).

In either case it is far higher than the $3K bandied about as a common amount for vouchers.



Peter Kay said:

Ken, I'm not sure what numbers you're counting besides our out of pocket numbers. A pocket is a pocket. Whether that pocket pays for private school or taxes to public school, that's what the cost is. Grants and endowments and the like might play a role but if anything, public schools would qualify for more of this kind of aid than private. I'm not sure why you're rejecting a 10k cost/child for private school and the 15k/cost child for public school. Those are the numbers. You may not like them. But they are what they are.

Ken Berkun said:

Peter Kay I'm disappointed in you! You can not compare your out of pocket expense with the actual cost of schooling per child. You should know better. Stick with the actual cost or you're comparing apples and oranges. I'm willing to bet that $10K is not the actual cost per child for the school, so don't compare it with the $15K per child for public school.



Peter Kay said:

Sign up your kid. Do they have a carnival perhaps? Sure. Do they have voluntary funds (e.g. for a new building)? sure. No more or less than any public school's bake sale. But $10k is "all" you have to pay out of your pocket for a top-notch education.

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Permalink Reply by John on August 23, 2009 at 8:35pm

Good find. Key quote:

"The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms."

To Brendan's point, I do accept the risk of being limited/constrained to the parent's own strengths. However, the amount of education material and the quality of that material is growing very quickly. I think that will reduce this risk.

The other interesting point Brendan raises is about social interaction: "No matter how many team sports a home schooled child plays, nothing beats the day in and day out interaction with their peers.... In the game of social survival of the fittest, they did not have the proper skills to thrive"

I'd be just as happy to have my child avoid participating in the social survival of the fittest. I think a lot of people in tech would feel similarly.

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Permalink Reply by Laurence A. Lee on August 24, 2009 at 12:44am

I 'thought I could bite my tongue on this and cool down a bit, but darn it, I take great offense to the notion that our Public Education System is of "near rock bottom" quality.

The fact that Hawaii's public schools regularly turn out students accepted by Ivy-League colleges shows that Public Education is working, and can prepare those who are motivated to take advantage of what's available. Can the success rates be higher? Sure, that'd be fantastic. But it's not likely we can do it through great Educators alone.

Put simply: Private School students benefit substantially because they all enjoy a higher degree of Parental Involvement. The same goes for students educated outside their neighborhoods via a District Exemption.

Part of the Education problem is, a large part of Hawaii's general population is so "poor" that both parents must work to make ends meet. They often just dump their kids upon Schools as Free Babysitters, and expect their teachers to "magically" educate their kids in the course of 6 hours/day. In other words, we have a bunch of Latchkey Kids with little Parental involvement around to motivate and guide them along the way. It also doesn't help if Parents were mediocre students themselves, and are unable (and intimated -- afraid to look "dumb" in front of their kids) to help their kids with their homework.

Calling the system "near rock-bottom" is a bit harsh, especially when there are a handful of outstanding Educators, struggling "with the system" to make a difference. One recent example was Kalani High's .NET Senior Project program. Of course, public education would benefit greatly if ALL educators were of this caliber, but sadly, HSTA's union contracts reward talent and mediocrity alike. Teachers are compensated by a McJob-formula consisting of Number of Years Served and Number of Continuing Improvement (college) courses taken. If the rampant mediocrity rewarded by HSTA's contract is what you're citing as "rock bottom quality", I'd agree.

IMHO, the only way to properly reward the Outstanding public educators is to set up a private Foundation created solely for collecting private donations, identifying outstanding educators, and awarding renewable bonuses, education grants, or any additional one-time funding they may seek. From where I sit, this isn't much different than Private Schools receiving donations, except that there is a Foundation in control of screening out award candidates. Something like this allows us to bypass HSTA's retarded system, and have teachers actually compete in true Capitalistic fashion for "private sector" style bonuses and grants.

Now that's an annual donation I'd be happy to make, as I'd know it'd be going to deserving educators.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Kay on August 24, 2009 at 2:23am

Laurence, the "rock bottom" claim is based on how Hawaii's public schools compare with the rest of the nations public schools. It's not a reflection nor comment in any way on the hard working teacher nor the wonderful accomplishments that individual schools undoubtedly make.


I'm dissappointed when I hear comments like "the reason why private schools do better is because of parental involvement". I'm certain there are plenty of public school parents, probably the ones of the higher performing students you note that would be greatly offended at such a sweeping statement.

I don't disagree in the slightest that involved parents result in better students, but to state that as your key reason for the documented failure of Hawaii's public school [to continually command higher budgets without commensurate higher quality education], I think, has an elitist quality to it that somehow says the public schools are just as good as anywhere else in the nation if it weren't for those "non-involved parents", and therefore you're saying the Hawaii's parents are somehow less involved that other parents in the country. I think that's a far, far-fetched assumption, at best.


Laurence A. Lee said:

I 'thought I could bite my tongue on this and cool down a bit, but darn it, I take great offense to the notion that our Public Education System is of "near rock bottom" quality.

The fact that Hawaii's public schools regularly turn out students accepted by Ivy-League colleges shows that Public Education is working, and can prepare those who are motivated to take advantage of what's available. Can the success rates be higher? Sure, that'd be fantastic. But it's not likely we can do it through great Educators alone.

Put simply: Private School students benefit substantially because they all enjoy a higher degree of Parental Involvement. The same goes for students educated outside their neighborhoods via a District Exemption.

Part of the Education problem is, a large part of Hawaii's general population is so "poor" that both parents must work to make ends meet. They often just dump their kids upon Schools as Free Babysitters, and expect their teachers to "magically" educate their kids in the course of 6 hours/day. In other words, we have a bunch of Latchkey Kids with little Parental involvement around to motivate and guide them along the way. It also doesn't help if Parents were mediocre students themselves, and are unable (and intimated -- afraid to look "dumb" in front of their kids) to help their kids with their homework.

Calling the system "near rock-bottom" is a bit harsh, especially when there are a handful of outstanding Educators, struggling "with the system" to make a difference. One recent example was Kalani High's .NET Senior Project program. Of course, public education would benefit greatly if ALL educators were of this caliber, but sadly, HSTA's union contracts reward talent and mediocrity alike. Teachers are compensated by a McJob-formula consisting of Number of Years Served and Number of Continuing Improvement (college) courses taken. If the rampant mediocrity rewarded by HSTA's contract is what you're citing as "rock bottom quality", I'd agree.

IMHO, the only way to properly reward the Outstanding public educators is to set up a private Foundation created solely for collecting private donations, identifying outstanding educators, and awarding renewable bonuses, education grants, or any additional one-time funding they may seek. From where I sit, this isn't much different than Private Schools receiving donations, except that there is a Foundation in control of screening out award candidates. Something like this allows us to bypass HSTA's retarded system, and have teachers actually compete in true Capitalistic fashion for "private sector" style bonuses and grants.

Now that's an annual donation I'd be happy to make, as I'd know it'd be going to deserving educators.

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Permalink Reply by Laurence A. Lee on August 24, 2009 at 8:22am

Peter,

My statements, observations, and opinions are strictly my own, and I believe them to be an accurate reflection as one who grew up going through Hawaii's Public Education system, and has experienced several different schools and neighborhoods along the way.

Among the ones who made it to great colleges, there was a glaring trend: a substantial amount of parental involvement. For example, I was classmates with someone who got into Princeton; his kid brother made it into MIT. I'm convinced they got where they did because the parents guided them along the way. Furthermore, they didn't have household distractions like Cable TV, which probably made it easy to "bore" those two into reading books for entertainment. :-)

I absolutely stand by my statement. The reason why Private School and District Exemption students do better is because their parents are more involved -- at least in caring enough to send them to a different school. Parents of higher performing students are likely Blessed as such because they are involved in their kids' lives. The "lost" latchkey kids, whose parents are barely home, are left to their own devices between 2pm and 6pm, and often get into trouble.

Of course, some kids do somehow see the light and buckle down to get an education.

IM(NS)HO, uninvolved parents leads to poor school performance, and unless we have a lot of Rock-Star educators who can inspire and motivate, the bell-curve will remain the way it is today.

Kids who aren't motivated or willing to learn simply won't learn. The National Averages just show that we have a higher percentage of such unmotivated kids. I for one don't hold the Public Education system as responsible for this trend as I do Insufficient Parenting.

The bright, motivated kids are still shining through, making the most of Public Education, and are making it on to college. As long as they continue to have the opportunity to get there, I'm satisfied. The others, well.. it's Social Darwinism at work, and some people are just born to perform uneducated Blue-Collar jobs. I suppose that's why Hawaii is so tragically infested with Labor Unions. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by John on August 24, 2009 at 9:38am

Laurence,

While I agree with you that students with higher degree of parental involvement do better, I think your point about poor vs rich is the more critical factor.

The blunt reality is that children from rich families go to much better colleges than their poorer counterparts and not because they are smarter or genetically superior.

As someone who went to an Ivy League college, I was blown away by how well to do my classmates were. The average students parent's were doctors and lawyers and quite a number were rich investors, bankers, corporate executives, etc. I found it very hard to find students with similar working class backgrounds as myself.

I do not know if Hawaii is a rock star or rock bottom education system. However, I am pretty sure that regardless of where you grow up, being rich is a huge advantage in getting a better eduction.

Could we restructure the existing system? Could we provide vouchers? Maybe, but politically it sounds hard.

This is why I think on-line education is such a powerful, democratizing force (see an interesting example at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/business/global/02cram.html ). It is so much cheaper for a poor student to get on-line and learn than it is to go to prep schools, hire tutors, go to summer sessions at Ivy League schools, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Kay on August 24, 2009 at 9:58am

Laurence,

No disagreement from me whatsover on the parental involvement issue.

So are you saying that since Hawaii's public school system ranks near the bottom of the list when compared to other public schools, the parents of Hawaii's public school systems are less involved than the parents of other children across the nation that go to public schools?

If so, what evidence do you have for that other than your own personal experience?

Laurence A. Lee said:

Peter,

My statements, observations, and opinions are strictly my own, and I believe them to be an accurate reflection as one who grew up going through Hawaii's Public Education system, and has experienced several different schools and neighborhoods along the way.

Among the ones who made it to great colleges, there was a glaring trend: a substantial amount of parental involvement. For example, I was classmates with someone who got into Princeton; his kid brother made it into MIT. I'm convinced they got where they did because the parents guided them along the way. Furthermore, they didn't have household distractions like Cable TV, which probably made it easy to "bore" those two into reading books for entertainment. :-)

I absolutely stand by my statement. The reason why Private School and District Exemption students do better is because their parents are more involved -- at least in caring enough to send them to a different school. Parents of higher performing students are likely Blessed as such because they are involved in their kids' lives. The "lost" latchkey kids, whose parents are barely home, are left to their own devices between 2pm and 6pm, and often get into trouble.

Of course, some kids do somehow see the light and buckle down to get an education.

IM(NS)HO, uninvolved parents leads to poor school performance, and unless we have a lot of Rock-Star educators who can inspire and motivate, the bell-curve will remain the way it is today.

Kids who aren't motivated or willing to learn simply won't learn. The National Averages just show that we have a higher percentage of such unmotivated kids. I for one don't hold the Public Education system as responsible for this trend as I do Insufficient Parenting.

The bright, motivated kids are still shining through, making the most of Public Education, and are making it on to college. As long as they continue to have the opportunity to get there, I'm satisfied. The others, well.. it's Social Darwinism at work, and some people are just born to perform uneducated Blue-Collar jobs. I suppose that's why Hawaii is so tragically infested with Labor Unions. ;-)

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