More on education spending

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Impatient drivers seem to be colorblind

I made a rare early-morning trip into Honolulu Wednesday, and I was amazed -- no, appalled -- no, terrified -- at the number of people who drove through red lights in their hurry to get wherever they were going. I love the "Slow Down --This Ain't the Mainland" bumper stickers.

Maybe we should make some that say "Go back to the Hawaii state driver's manual and realize that RED means STOP." If it stops one person from running a red light, I know I'd feel a little bit safer on our streets.

Alicia Kaneshiro
Kaneohe

Bikeway will improve Young Street area

The lack of bicycle lanes in Honolulu and Waikiki makes biking an unattractive prospect. For the brave few, the approach is usually to go fast and wear a helmet. Motorists are unhappy because bicyclists are integrated in traffic (it is illegal to bike on sidewalks), and cyclists are unhappy because it is unsafe.

This is why the Young Street bikeway is a great idea. The current plan will retain 90 percent of the street parking, create a safe corridor for bikes and cars, and cool the area with green trees, thus enhancing the experience for pedestrians.

Cyclists would have dedicated lanes free of opening car door hazards. More walk-in traffic will be generated for Young Street businesses, and it would be a tremendous improvement to the existing street and sidewalk conditions. It is up to the City Council to approve funding for the bikeway in March.

It is time for Honolulu to actualize progress toward a healthy alternative to car dependence. If you support the Young Street bikeway, please contact your City Council person and ask that the Young Street park boulevard plan be fully funded this year.

Naomi Arcand
Palolo

Kamehameha should offer higher-ed degrees

To improve educational opportunities for Hawaiians, I propose that the Kamehameha Schools build two campuses of higher learning on Oahu: a four-year university and a two-year technical/vocational school.

The campuses could be built using funds from the trust, which is currently worth about $5.5 billion. Both tuition-free schools should be open only to students with Hawaiian blood.

Wouldn't it be great to have more Hawaiians receive their college and vocational degrees and realize the full benefit of the trust?

Edwin S. Imamura
Wahiawa

Roundabouts are costly and dangerous

The city is determined to install another roundabout in our neighborhood, in spite of the neighborhood boards recently reaffirmed opposition and without considering the potential fiscal liability and legal consequences to taxpayers.

These expensive monuments to traffic-calming are dangerous, "free fire zones without rules of engagement" until regulations governing their use are written into our statues.

Dennis Egge
Salt Lake

Speech pandered to special interests

President Bush's State of the Union speech was one of the saddest things I've ever heard. It was so blatantly pro-special interest that he should be ashamed. I now believe even more strongly that he and Vice President Dick Cheney will go down in our history as the worst occupants of the White House ever. We've got to pull together to get them out of politics forever.

Robert G. Devine
Ocean View, Hawaii

Editorial on speech was off target

Your Jan. 22 editorial on the State of the Union address is typical of Democratic talking points. You correctly pointed out that most Americans support U.S. policy in Iraq. What you failed to address is the part of President Bush's speech about the United States having to enforce the 17 U.N. resolutions passed demanding the disarmament of Saddam Hussein. Seventeen resolutions do not get passed without evidence of weapons.

The war in Iraq is not "mistakenly" a part of the war on terror. Saddam paid family members of homicide bombers to attack foreign interests in Iraq: That's terrorism. Pre-emptive actions are required when American lives are at stake, and no permission slip is required from the anti-American U.N.

As for the other points:

>> Most Americans -- around 70 percent -- oppose gay marriage, except your staff.
>> Medical malpractice award limits are necessary to bring down the cost of insurance.
>> The Clinton recession has been thwarted by the tax cuts. The Dow is above 10,000. Spending is up, which proves Americans spend their money better than the government. After continued positive indicators, job growth will happen. No company is going to hire because of one or two quarters of growth; job growth always lags behind.

Robert Thurston
Haleiwa

Tell lawmakers, competition is good

The Star-Bulletin reported that the Legislature funded a study to determine if economic competition caused by big-box retailers was good for Hawaii ("Study into 'big box' firms inconclusive," Star-BuIletin, Jan. 20).

Is this the same Legislature whose Democratic majority passed a gas price cap bill because there allegedly wasn't enough economic competition in that industry? Did the Democrats ask the people conducting the study if the economic competition from gas stations run by (big-box retailer) Costco was good or bad for Hawaii?

Do we really need to spend tax dollars for studies asking if economic competition is good or bad? Or do we need legislators who already understand that competition, not price controls, causes lower prices?

Jim Henshaw
Kaneohe

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Report on per pupil education spending was seriously flawed

William Ouchi's attempt (Letters, Jan.18) to explain away how he and Bruce Cooper inflated Hawaii's per pupil expenditures on public education by more than 25 percent is not convincing. He conceded that the Education Week figure of $6,614 cited by your reporter, Susan Essoyan, is correct.

He then tried to claim that his figure of $8,361 for the same year, more than $1,700 higher, is also correct. His claim is bogus. Here's why.

Ouchi says he and Cooper wanted to look at "another view of per-pupil spending," i.e., revenue sources. But they did not say their data were revenues. Instead, they labeled their data as "Rank Order of Fifty States and District of Columbia: Per Pupil Spending, 2001-2002 (NCES data bank)."

Several things are wrong here. First, the data were not per pupil spending; they were, if calculated correctly, total per pupil revenues. Revenues are income, not spending. Second, Ouchi and Cooper mislabeled their source, indicating it was the National Center for Education Statistics rather than the actual source, the U.S. Census Bureau.

They also mislabeled the year, which Ouchi now acknowledges was 2000-01, not 2001-02.

Further, they failed to indicate that they, not the Census Bureau, had calculated the figures using a non-standard procedure. NCES has a procedure for calculating operating expenditures per pupil, which excludes spending on capital improvements (new buildings and major renovations). Capital expenditures are excluded because they cause large fluctuations from year to year. This procedure is standard; it was used by Education Week, and is used by NCES and the Census Bureau.

On the very same Web site from which Ouchi and Cooper downloaded data, there is a Census Bureau report, Public Education Finances, 2001. Table 8 of that report listed per pupil spending amounts for 2000-01, in total and by category, for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Hawaii's total was given as $6,558, which would rank Hawaii 34th on the list, a long way down from the 15th that Ouchi and Cooper claimed. The Census Bureau report is at http://www.census.gov/govs/ school/01fullreport.pdf.

Finally, Ouchi claims that "there are no standards for financial reporting that all states must follow." That is false. The reporting of school financial data is required by federal law (PL97-35) on the National Public Education Financial Survey. Data are reported to the Census Bureau to standards set by NCES. Both federal agencies report per pupil spending using the same procedure. That's as standard as you can get.

These discrepancies raise questions about Ouchi and Cooper's work and intent. Were two guys with Ph.D.s and long experience really that sloppy, or was their presentation intended to deceive?

Thomas Graham Gans
Retired school performance evaluation specialist
Department of Education