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December 5, 2007 > MAUI TODAY, > Maui Yesterdays No Comments |
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Hanukkah
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — A‘o palapa: Education HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY —“The light that will not go out in spite of the blowing of the wind.”
December 5th, 2005: The decades-old, huge public outcry for an new, expensive private school on Maui is finally answered: Maui Preparatory Academy in Napili opens its doors. Serving kids from grades Kindergarten to 12th at a cost between $10,500 and $11,800, the school is just what the West Side ordered: a sense of elitism packaged in an easy-to-swallow “we’re doing it for the kids” patina. (You can almost hear it now - “we’d be skiing in Aspen this year but Buffy and Tad’s second grade bills - ugh!”). Meanwhile, the vast majority of families on Maui contend with an ever depressing series of bad news from Hawaii state public schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the federal Education Dept.), Hawaii scores below average in fourth and eighth grade tests on both math and reading. It scores well below the average for science, and don’t even ask about writing - second lowest in the nation.
Hawaii doesn’t stop there. The per school expenditure per state averages $5 million in the United States. In Hawaii, the per school average is $6.2 million, which means not only are Hawaiian kids not learning what they need to, but the state is failing at its job in a spectacularly inefficient manner. Even our student/teacher rations are higher than average.
Finally, in NO category tracked by the federal government, for any grade, in any subject, is Hawaii at or higher than average. In fact, the disparity between Hawaii scores and the averages increases as the students get older.
Kind of makes you want to start a school of your own, eh?
HISTORICAL EVENTS — December 5th
1349: Jews are massacred at Nuremberg in the Black Death Riots
1492: Columbus discovers Hispaniola (El Española - Haiti)
1496: Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I
1848: President Polk triggers Gold Rush of ‘49, confirms California gold discovery
1868: First American bicycle college opens
1929: The first U.S. nudist organization is formed
1932: German physicist Albert Einstein is granted a visa
1933: The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment (Prohibition)
1935: The first commercial hydroponics operation is established
1955: The AFL & CIO labor unions merge, with George Meany as president
1967: The Beatles clothing store, “Apple,” opens in London
1985: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises above the 1,500 level for first time
1994: Republicans choose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in 4 decades
BORN ON THIS DAY – December 5th
1782: Martin Van Buren, 8th U.S. president
1839: George Armstrong Custer, General
1890: Fritz Lang, director
1901: Walt Disney, animator
1901: Werner Heisenberg, Nobel physicist
1902: J Strom Thurmond, Senator
1905: Otto Preminger, movie director/producer
1915: Margaret Hayes, actress
1932: Little Richard (Penniman), rocker
1934: Joan Didion, writer
1935: Calvin Trillin, author
1938: J.J. Cale, rocker
1946: Jose Carreras, actor
1947: Jim Messina, rocker
1947: Jim Plunkett, NFL quarterback
1957: Phil Collen, rocker
1962: Connie Needham Newton, actress
1963: Carrie Hamilton, actress,
