I've written a bit about this on my blog. A story: years ago, when
Paul LeMahieu had just become DOE supt and Randy Hits (?) came
on at the school of education at UH, Jade Moon did a show at the
UH Art Auditorium on how they were going to improve public
education (or something like that). I was asked to gather an
audience, which I did.

Then, at the beginning, Jade Moon played a video clip as part of
the program which we could watch on a monitor set up at the side.
It included a surprising segment in which hotel industry folks
praised Hawaii's educational system as just perfect, producing
exactly the graduates they needed. I was surprised that the clip
was included, since it contradicted the point of the program.

But the hotel industry folks were correct.

When Sputnik went up, the country said we need more engineers.
Schools graduated more math and science students who went into
engineering and eventually we got the engineers. In areas of the
country where there is some kind of manufacturing, the schools
are geared toward that. In farming areas, etc. Without checking
studies that are certainly out there, this is what I think is
happening in Hawaii. Commercial considerations do push
education. Our predominant industry is tourism, not engineering.

Now, if parents pushed for improved education, that might work,
but they don't. When Act 51 was passed at the lege, I was
surprised that there were so many advocates but few if any
parents came to testify. And so on. Several parents have told me
that they would be sad if their children graduated UH engineering
with good grades and so had to go to the Mainland to find work.

I took an informal survey of 5 or 6 execs at the Plaza club to see if
they could get financial and technical people, given how poor our
educational system is, and the answer was, no trouble. There are
enough Iolani or Punahou graduates to go around. Well, it was no
scientific survey, but it rings true. I don't know what the situation
is today.

As to Act 221, if only it were part of a comprehensive program, but
it's not. It can indeed create jobs, but they don't have to be in
Hawaii. They could be in Iowa, for example. It's no silver bullet,
but by having only a tax credit, and clinging to discredited ideas
like Hawaii's time zone makes it ideal to do business in both Asia
and the USA, we are missing the boat, if there indeed is one.
DBEDT could do better, IMHO.

Final point--when I came to Hawaii I was amazed to find one-
floppy IBM PCs or PC ATs in offices when the rest of the world had
moved ahead. Offices often turned off their fax machines before
going home at night and forgot to turn them on the next day. I did
not see the OCR machines I saw in law offices elsewhere.

One way you can tell a tech-savvy society is by its own use of
appropriate technology. We were talking about a spaceport at a
time when we had no supporting medium-tech and didn't know
how to use the technology needed to run an operation like that.
Not to say that people could not come to or return to Hawaii who
had the expertise, but it takes more than that, much more.

Of course the children deserve the best education. Maybe the jobs
need to come first, though, which is chicken-and-eggs, but would
be sustainable.

Cheerz,
--Larry