[ OUR OPINION ]
Private schools need
state’s support, tooNOT all private schools have the financial muscle of Punahou or Iolani, and because private institutions provide education for about 36,000 of Hawaii's children, the state should find a way to help these schools. A bill that would allow the state to act as a conduit to finance construction for private school facilities would do that. It should receive the support of lawmakers as well as taxpayers.
THE ISSUE A bill would help private schools build new facilities without costing taxpayers a dime.
The measure proposes an amendment to the Hawaii Constitution to authorize the state to issue special purpose revenue bonds and use the proceeds to assist non-profit schools, colleges and universities. The bonds would not burden the state financially through either taxes or administrative costs. Nor would they affect the state's credit rating or its bond cap. It would simply ease the way for private schools to get loans for construction projects and would not hold the state liable should a school default on a loan. The state Department of Education has no objection to the proposal because it would not take away any money from public education.
First Amendment concerns have been researched by the Legislative Reference Bureau, which found that similar programs in other states have been cleared by the courts as consistent with the U.S. Constitution. The courts have ruled that as long as the buildings financed through the bonds are for instructional and not religious purposes, there are no constitutional restrictions.
The bill would require each special purpose bond to be approved by the Legislature, allowing lawmakers to examine each venture before the bonds are issued. It also would permit separate private schools, 80 percent of which have tuitions of less than $6,000 a year, to bundle individual building projects so that the schools may seek the lowest interest rates for loans. This also would likely result in more construction industry jobs.
The measure would primarily benefit the state's smaller private schools, which average between 250 and 400 students and which have annual budgets of about $2 million to $3 million. The institutions offer parents a choice in educating their children and while some of the 130 private schools in the state are connected to religious organizations, their principal aims are instructional.
There appear to be no drawbacks to the measure. A good education contributes to a healthy society no matter if the children learn at public or private institutions.
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U.S. borders need
heightened securitySOON after the Sept. 11 attack on America, Congress passed a law that gave the administration what some have regarded as draconian powers to prosecute suspected terrorists. However, it failed to provide methods of keeping track of foreign visitors who may have terrorist plans. A bill nearing enactment would build those safeguards without harming the travel industry or compromising freedoms.
THE ISSUE The Senate has approved measures aimed at tightening security along U.S. borders.
The requirements may cause minor inconvenience to some visitors to Hawaii, and it will increase the amount of paperwork at colleges. However, those are small prices to pay for the security needed because of the events of the past seven months.
The 19 airplane hijackers entered the United States on tourist, student and business visas. Some had lost their legal status before the attack, but immigration officials had no way of finding them.
Legislation approved by the House and a similar measure that received Senate approval last week would create a database aimed at keeping track of foreign visitors. Information would be shared among the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, which issues visas.
Machine-readable, tamper-resistant visas and travel documents imprinted with identifiers like fingerprints would be issued to visitors from nations where U.S. visas are required. Visitors from Canada, Japan and 23 other countries where visa requirements are waived would not be affected.
The pending legislation would strengthen border security in various ways, such as lifting a 45-minute time limit for U.S. inspectors to process incoming flights. Air travelers may have to wait a little longer so adequate inspections can be completed.
In November, a review of immigration records showed that 3,761 of the nation's half-million foreign students were from terrorist-supporting countries. Two of the Sept. 11 terrorists were in America on student visas and had violated their terms. The legislation would require schools to notify the Immigration and Naturalization Service if a foreign student failed to report for class within 30 days of the registration deadline.
The INS also would regularly check schools to determine if they are complying with the reporting requirement. Failure to comply could cost schools their authority to accept foreign students.
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