While it\u2019s often fruitful to compare education systems of other states with Alaska\u2019s, David Nees\u2019 misrepresentation of two facts, the premises of his Oct. 19 My Turn, undermines rational, informed comparison.<\/p>\n
Contrary to the claim that Hawaii had the first public school system west of the Mississippi, erroneously attributed to a Kamahama \u2014 apparently a misidentification of King Kamehameha \u2014 that part of Hawaii\u2019s educational system was established by private\/monarchic initiative, often referred to as the Bishop Estate legacy. Moreover, it specifically targeted students of Hawaiian lineage. To this day the Kamehameha School selects for Hawaiian descendants. Simultaneously, colonial\/immigrant presence impelled establishment of private schools, notably backed by missionaries and the Big 5 corporations, e.g. Castle & Cook.<\/p>\n
Nees\u2019 second of the two facts equally distorts history, claiming at statehood Alaska established Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools along with state and independent schools. The federal schools already existed under territorial jurisdiction. Rightly, he states that the federally-founded schools were incorporated into Alaska\u2019s education system.<\/p>\n
Beyond these two facts, a number of unsubstantiated assertions are advanced. Among the more glaring distortions include: Hawaii\u2019s better performance on standardized tests without mentioning the disproportionate contributions of elite, private schools like Punahou (in Honolulu); glossing over Hawaii\u2019s long history of ethnic frictions involving Chinese, Japanese and Philippine communities; and failing to mention Hawaii\u2019s cumbersome, single-district, Honolulu-centered administration that escapes local island accountability.<\/p>\n
Summoning the essence of \u201cAloha\u201d spirit has nothing to do with government\/education. Pretending it can be instantly incorporated to address Alaska\u2019s educational challenges reaches into a realm inimical to Hawaiian culture.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bill McCord is a Haines resident. He is a retired teacher certified in science and English and has taught at Hawaii\u2019s Konawaena high school and middle school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While it\u2019s often fruitful to compare education systems of other states with Alaska\u2019s, David Nees\u2019 misrepresentation of two facts, the premises of his Oct. 19 My Turn, undermines rational, informed comparison. Contrary to the claim that Hawaii had the first public school system west of the Mississippi, erroneously attributed to a Kamahama \u2014 apparently a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25752"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}