Furloughs hurt military’s view of Hawaii’s schools

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (AP) — The third- to fifth-graders ran up to their instructor clutching a list of words using the letters B, D and E.

Split into boy and girls teams, the students offered the teacher “bed” and “bead.” The boys spelled more words, beating the girls 18-15.

It’s a Friday, but these students aren’t in school. They’re at a youth center where the U.S. Army is keeping soldiers’ children engaged and learning on the 17 Fridays this school year that Hawaii has closed public schools to narrow a budget deficit.

The state’s decision in October to shrink the school year by 10 percent, giving it the fewest number of instructional days in the nation at 163, is adding to the already dismal reputation Hawaii’s public schools have among servicemen and women.

Col. Mike Davino, the director of manpower, personnel and administration for the U.S. Pacific Command, said the truncated school year is yet another concern for officials who have long heard about servicemen and women avoiding Hawaii assignments because of the state’s public education system.

Commanders are so concerned about the overall health of isle schools that the military is paying researchers from Johns Hopkins University $1.5 million to study military attitudes toward Hawaii public education over a three-year period to see if there’s any concrete data to support the unhappy anecdotes.

The study, now in its first year, will track families who have received assignments to Hawaii, those who are currently here and those who have left the islands. It will examine whether the education their children received in Hawaii put them at a disadvantage or prepared them well for their next school.

“Hawaii doesn’t have the strongest education system as it is. So then to compromise by taking more hours away?” said Master Sgt. Tamatha R. Perkins, whose 6-year-old son John is in first grade at an Oahu school. “If they’re in the bottom tier, they don’t need to be cutting out days of education. They’re going the wrong way.”

The study will also document how many troops choose Hawaii’s public schools and how many choose alternatives like homeschooling, private schools or even leaving their children with family on the mainland.

Military statistics indicate there should currently be about 23,000 school-age dependents in the islands, which are home to several major installations including Pearl Harbor. But there are only 13,000 to 14,000 military dependents enrolled in Hawaii public schools, indicating thousands of parents are choosing to educate their children elsewhere.

Hawaii’s school system was struggling even before the state shrunk the school year.

Last year, a record number of schools, almost two-thirds, failed to meet progress goals under the federal No Child Left Behind law.