There has been discussion of taking stimulus funds earmarked for Hawai`i charter schools and using it to cover furlough days.

This is a terrible idea.

Charter schools in this state already get the short end of the stick. Give them their stimulus funds. (See article on legislators' efforts to take stimulus funds from the character schools to make up for furlough fridays.)

I understand we need to invest in education. Yet, we should not take from schools that are worse off to give to schools that are (however slightly) better off.

You don't take from the poorest to give to the poor.

Further, charter schools have become havens for Hawaiian students and educators who found that they no place in the public education system, many of which alienated Hawaiian children for generations. Charter schools have helped with the regeneration of the Hawaiian culture, making a Hawaiian education available to children of all backgrounds throughout the state. Many of these schools find they have better retention rates and graduation rates than traditional public schools, and they also help to nurture their students in ways other schools did not. To continue to take resources away from these schools is absurd and shows just how little the state understands about how important charter schools are in the communities they serve.

Also, helping charter schools will bring in money. Charter schools have been pleading with the state for years to give them equal funding for their students and to make the state eligible for more federal money. Everybody saw this coming. It's why US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in his editorial printed in the Honolulu Advertiser on October 23, 2009 mentioned the state needing to make itself eligible for more funding. Funding charter schools is a way to do this.

Information on the "Race to the Top" funding can be read here.

The application requires states to document their past success and outline their plans to extend their reforms by using college- and career-ready standards and assessments, building a workforce of highly effective educators, creating educational data systems to support student achievement, and turning around their lowest-performing schools.

The $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund is an unprecedented federal investment in reform. Duncan will reserve up to $350 million to help states create assessments aligned to common sets of standards. The remaining $4 billion will be awarded in a national competition.

To qualify, states must have no legal barriers to linking student growth and achievement data to teachers and principals for the purposes of evaluation. They also must have the department's approval for their plans for both phases of the Recovery Act's State Fiscal Stabilization Fund prior to being awarded a grant.

The final application released today includes significant changes to the proposal released by the U.S. Department of Education in July. After reviewing responses to the draft proposals from 1,161 people, who submitted thousands of unique comments, ranging from one paragraph to 67 pages, the U.S. Department of Education restructured the application and changed it to reflect the ideas of the public.

If we should find that we are not ready to "race to the top" as a state, perhaps we need to immediately figure out who let us fall so far to the bottom.

But to make children suffer in the process is simply not acceptable.

In response to the repeated desecration of sacred cultural sites throughout Hawai`i, groups throughout the islands and throughout the world will be joining to call upon their ancestors as an act of unification and protest. Please see original message below, reprinted here with permission by the authors.

Aloha,

It is time to let the sound of the drums unite us from Kaua’i to Hawai’i island. It is time for us to join together to make sure our sacred cultural sites are properly protected and respected throughout Hawai’i nei.

On Saturday, November 7th, 2009 a group will be going to Hawea in Maunalua (Hawai’i Kai) to beat the drums for our kupuna at Hawea Heiau Complex. We will drum to let our kupuna know we honor their presence there and we will drum to let them know that we are united to work as hard as we can to make sure they, and the history they represent, will not be allowed to be erased, to be bulldozed, from the land.

And we drum to let the State Historic Preservation Department hear that throughout our islands we have lost faith in their ability to properly protect and respect our precious and priceless cultural areas.

Hawea Heiau Complex is one of multiple cultural sites throughout our islands that are right now under threat of desecration and destruction. If you would like to join the drums of Hawea,
we ask you to take drums to the sacred sites in your communities on Kaua’i, O’ahu, Maui, Moloka’i, Lana’i and Hawai’i. At 6pm we will start drumming at Hawea and we hope that wherever you are throughout Hawai’i nei you drum with us.

As we call to our ancestors at 6 pm we will drum until it is time for us to let our kupuna know we will be leaving.

Our kupuna are with us always, in the sky, the land, the sea and in our hearts and we will fight to make sure they know we are with them and we have not forgotten how important they are to all of us - Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian.

Aloha,

Ann Marie Kirk, Liveable Hawai’i Kai Hui

Chris Cramer, Liveable Hawai’i Kai Hui, East O’ahu Historian

Drum for our Sacred Cultural Sites throughout Hawai'i Nei
Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 6pm

Hawea

The drums of Hawea were silenced,
Years of neglect caused its demise.
A once prominent wahipana,
Reduced to rubble and ruin,
Scarred pohaku caused by ignorance,
Left in a pile of disgrace.

A pohaku canvas paints
The history of those long gone.
Sacred `aina used, as was pono,
To build a kauhale, heiau,
Sacred enclosures for our people,
To come and pay respect.

The essence of the spirit within Hawea
Calls out to be heard.
The vibration echoing the pulse
Of those who have made a stand.
For the sanctity of the Pahu,
The drum to unite us all.

By: Linda Kaleo-o-kalani Paik August, 2009

If you haven't seen it, Leslie Wilcox posted a blog on her website a couple weeks ago that shot out across the Facebook universe to the great joy of Hawaiians and others throughout Hawai`i.

(I have reprinted her post below my comments.)

This decision alone makes PBS Hawai`i a shining example in appreciating that cultural respect needs to be a priority in management and business decisions. She referred to it as "an easy call," and bless her for that, because it should be an easy call. Businesses throughout Hawai`i should insist on cultural and Hawaiian language accuracy; we all know far too well that they often don't.

The series decided to redo the audio. They worked with Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies at Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Keola Donaghy (who was also recently awarded with an innovation award by Governor Lingle for his work with Google).

We would hope the national series at issue appreciated the mitigation Wilcox did for them. She was right - had (yet another) national series been shown on Hawai`i without even being able to pronouce basic words, it would have undermined the crediblity of the entire series. And in a time when even Google is using Hawaiian language accurately, an outdated butchering of our language would have been flat out embarassing and insulting.

Further, it seems that in a time when television truly needs to stay innovative and accurate to maintain the attention of viewers who have thousands of other channels and the internet available, the national producers were well served listening to people like Wilcox who know her demographic and have their respect. People will not support and respect a station that shows no respect for them. Wilcox clearly appreciates that - others would do well to listen.

So thank you, Leslie Wilcox and PBS Hawai`i, for holding the line, for requiring the same quality standards for English and Hawaiian, and for your inspiring show of respect for the host culture.

I will certainly watch PBS Hawai`i more as a result, and be renewing my membership. There is currently an October pledge drive underway, I hope those who appreciate this decision show it through showing their support for the organization.

Leslie Wilcox's original blog post follows. Follow up postings can be found here ("Sticking up for the Hawaiian Language") and here ("What if the Narrator got THEIR Home's Names Wrong?").

Plowing Thru Hawaiian Words Without a Clue

Our management team at PBS Hawaii made an easy call today. We decided to tell the producers of a national series that we won't air a particular episode unless they re-do their narration, to pronounce key Hawaiian words correctly.

The way the narrator pronounces most of the Hawaiian place-names bears little resemblance to what we should be hearing. In fact, I didn't recognize the name of a school as pronounced. When I saw the pictures, I knew the school immediately and realized just how far off the charts the narrator is.

Our programming department, led by Linda Brock, and other staffers are not Hawaiian language experts. However, we agree there doesn't even seem to have been an effort to try to get it right. For example, Hualalai is pronounced (twice) as Hula Lolly.

This is a show that came to Hawaii and didn't do its cultural homework. As a result, the show suffers a loss of credibility.

Which is too bad, because I very much like the show's subject and its storytelling. And I appreciate the producers shooting on location on an island that is sometimes overlooked. So I won't mention the name of the show, which we have been anticipating broadcasting this fall on PBS Hawaii.

It's the second time this year that PBS Hawaii has decided to hold the line, declining to air a program about Hawaii that mangles the language of our host culture. After all, we want to uphold high standards--and English AND Hawaiian are the state's official languages.

We're not perfect, either. But we believe it's important to make one's best effort--to learn phonetic basics rather than plow through Hawaiian words without a clue.

Local stations are the heart of the PBS system, and so is education. Let's hope this show decides to go back to the audio booth, to backtrack and re-track, and give all of the TV markets in which it airs the authenticity and quality that viewers deserve.

Then, we can all sit back and enjoy the show.

Aloha kakou,

Some of us from Molokai are coming to Oahu (The Waikiki Aquarium) to demand that NOAA return our Seal KP2 to Molokai.

NOAA came to Molokai early last Friday morning and stole our seal, by placing him in a C130 military transport plane. NOAA had promised us at a community meeting that we had between 2 and 4 months to educate our community about dealing with KP2, as this seal pup spent the summer at our wharf swimming with our kids and joined in our canoe races. Two weeks after their promise to work with us, NOAA sneaks into Molokai and grabs KP2 with the intent of taking him to Nihoa and Kaula Rock near Kauai. The Niihau people tell us that Nihoa and Kaula is shark infested.

Lies and covert actions don't go with us, so we will protest what NOAA did, and demand they return our seal, who has become a special hoailona for Molokai. KP2 has also been featured on the front page of the Wall street Journal and has been on national tv news. KP2 is a living fossel, whose species is over 10 million years old, they were here before our islands were formed. They are now in near extinction, with less than 1,400 left and in a 4% yearly decline. KP2 has come to represent us as Hawaiians, as we both struggle for survival in these Hawaiian Islands. How we treat The Hawaiian Monk Seal is how we can be expected to be treated as Hawaiians.

We plan to fly in Wednesday morning and hope to be at the Aquarium by 9:00am with our signs of protest. We will call a press conference at 11:00AM and would like to invite everyone to come and support us in dealing with this government mentality that can be detrimental to local communities.

Mahalo nui loa,
Walter Ritte

On Saturday, the Hawaiian community lost one of its most glorious treasures, Aunty Malia Kawaiho`ouluaha`ao Craver. She was one of our best and brightest. I was honored to have met her and shared time with her. She was truly an inspiration to Hawaiians everywhere. Her love for her culture and community will remain the standard for us all to strive towards.

I am overwhelmed with sadness. She was truly one of the most amazing people I have ever had the honor to meet.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs issued a statement, which reads in part:

"Aunty Malia Kawaiho'ouluoha'ao Craver has passed from this life and, as our kūpuna say, she is 'moe i ka moe kau a ho'oilo' (asleep with the sleep that lasts through summers and winters)," said OHA Chairperson Haunani Apoliona.

"She leaves a tremendous legacy through her own work in Hawaiian language, composition, support of hula and the arts, teaching and practice of ho'oponopono, advocacy for Native Hawaiian rights and well-being, and service to Native Hawaiian children. Her career and service to Native Hawaiian families started with the Salvation Army and concluded with the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center.

"The thousands of people and families touched by Aunty Malia's encouragement to work for peace in Hawai'i and the world feel a tremendous loss by her passing. Aunty would now expect that all those with whom she shared culture, values, and mana'o will now do their good work for peace in Hawai'i and the world … and leave a legacy of truth and goodness. Nou e ke aloha no nā kau a kau, e Kawaiho'ouluoha'ao (A fond remembrance and aloha to you for all times, Kawaihoʻouluohaʻao)," Apoliona said.

Craver was a social worker assistant on the staff of the Queen Liliʻuokalani Children's Center for 30 years. She returned to (QLCC) after retirement to serve as a cultural and spiritual advisor for family and community building activities. The soft-spoken kupuna, whose peace-making efforts started at the basic level of helping out 'ohana to resolve their crises, was known for exemplary humility, while she was also adamant about the need for Native Hawaiians to leave behind acrimony and to progress by adhering to traditional Hawaiian values of respect and harmony. She was fond of using this simple and direct phrase in admonishing young Hawaiians: "Do something! Leave a legacy."

Craver brought ho'oponopono and Hawaiian values to a global audience at the United Nations, where she delivered an address on international unity to the annual Non-Governmental Organizational Conference in August 2000.

I have reprinted that address in its entirety below:

Good afternoon everyone!

Mahalo!

Aloha no, Aunty. May we all strive to live by these words and honor your legacy. You will be forever missed and loved.

(Comments will not be allowed on this posting. In this case, a respectful silence is the only response.)