I was impressed to see the Hawaii Senate taking such bold, decisive action to combat student absenteeism ("Chronic absenteeism crimps isle students’ achievement," Star-Advertiser, March 25).
Charging School Community Councils (SCCs) with reviewing their schools’ attendance policy, developing a plan on how to improve absenteeism and reporting to lawmakers in 2013 is just the type of leadership we have grown to love and expect from our lawmakers: Never tackle the hard issues, and pass the buck to someone else.
Obviously Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, has never been a teacher in a Hawaii public school. Here, every teacher knows that talking about things like parents and students who don’t see school as a top priority, students who avoid school (for whatever reason), and economic conditions marks you as part of the problem. Teachers have to simply overcome these issues and see that no child is left behind, no matter what it takes. If they can’t do that, they are obviously poor teachers, and need to be fired.
Luckily for the SCCs, there are a number of initiatives already in use in Hawaii public schools that the state Board of Education and state Department of Education seem to have embraced, and that may help them meet the Legislature’s mandate. Here are a few common ones:
» Don’t assign homework, even in high school.
Those kids with problems at home, or whose parents don’t take an active role in their children’s education, won’t do it anyway. This, in turn, leads the student to feel bad and to low self-esteem and school avoidance. Students who do their homework are really academic bullies, and their parents elitists, racists and snobs.
» Allow students to retake tests and other assessments as many times as they need to pass.
Eventually, they will pass. This is an especially popular option in Hawaii middle schools, where the kids, and even their parents, still actually think this means they learned something, and helps build their self-esteem.
Look for principals who say, "Failure is not an option," and you know you have found such an enlightened administrator.
» Make assignments culturally relevant, fun and real-world.
How can elementary school students really be expected to do something as hard, and requiring as much effort and parental help, as memorizing the multiplication tables? Teach kids culturally relevant skills, like being able to multiply by nine using their fingers. They can’t bring flash cards into the ACT college entrance exam, but they will have their fingers! And in Hawaii, where so many students wear slippers to school, they can use their toes, too!
All flippancy aside, the bottom line is this: If a student fails, if a student doesn’t come to school, if a student ends up in prison, it is the schools’ fault. It’s the schools that Hawaii has made almost solely responsible for the health, education and welfare of our kids.
Expecting real legislative or societal support is hopeless. Having the teachers to kick around and blame society’s ills on has become the common sport and pastime of Democrats, Republicans and everyone else who has given up on actually doing anything.
I’d like to think the Senate was serious about the societal issues involved, but putting it off onto the SCCs, to whom the Legislature gave no real power or resources, gives it the lie.
The thing that amazes me is that so many teachers, administrators, parents and community members still really do care; that they eschew the "solutions" noted above (and numerous similar), that they get up every day, gird their loins, and enter the battle to help our students against ever increasing odds, despite ever declining pay and harsher working conditions.
God bless them.
Russ Robison is a retired naval officer and a teacher at Mililani High School, and has been actively involved in educational issues in Hawaii.
