Summary: The Decline Of The Hawaiian Education System

Preamble

Perhaps the most essential component of a successful nation is its education system. With an educated population come a more efficient and successful economy, and an overall improvement in quality of life. Despite this being true, the United States has neglected its once great education system in recent years, and has since been left behind by global education giants such as South Korea or Finland. As of 2014, American students rank barely above average in the world on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and have been overtaken by numerous countries in the past decade with far inferior economic prowess. (Resmovits, 2014) A perfect microcosm of this fall from grace of the American education system is the decline

The state did score a D and F for academic achievement and international competiveness respectively; but what are the numbers that substantiate that poor ranking? According to Table 1, only 28% of 8th graders in reading and 32% of 8th graders in math scored at or above proficiency in state exams. Both of these figures are the lowest on the west coast. (Table 1) Hawaiian students also scored lower than average in both the ACT and SAT exams, a sign that Hawaiian students are simply not learning enough to further their education after graduation. (Hawaii Public, 2015) Hawaii also boasts a dropout rate of 14.8%, more then 7% higher than the national average. (Superintendent, 2014) These statistics are startling and show that a comprehensive reform plan is necessary as soon as possible. Below we will lay out our comprehensive reform plan that will dramatically improve Hawaiian public schools and allow them to reach and even surpass some of the top state education systems in the

As of now only 40% of Hawaii’s four year olds are enrolled in any time of early childhood education program. (Hawaii Public, 2015) This is clearly an issue. The presence of preschool classes in a states education system has been proven to yield significant improvements in a child’s educational achievement. For Hawaii specifically, a universal preschool system would be instrumental in solving the issues presented by their diverse demographics, particularly in helping the sizeable population of Hawaiians that can’t speak English well enough to advance in education and society. We further make our case by presenting the scholarly support for universal preschool and the political feasibility of passing and implementing the doctrine. Finally, we will examine the total costs of implementation for the program, which we will further address in the funding section of the