Obama's Hawaiian Punahou Prep School Connection

 “Hawaii's public schools are in crisis.

“Simply put, there isn't enough money to keep them open full-time. With…a $468 million budget cut to Hawaii's Department of Education, in September the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) voted to accept a two-year contract that includes 17 furlough days for both the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years….The cuts have been scheduled for regular school days, reducing Hawaii's public instruction from 180 days to 163, the fewest in the nation and ten days less than the state second from the bottom, North Dakota….

“There is no shortage of frustration to go around, particularly among parents of public school children. One such parent is Jack Yatsko,…the father of fifth and eighth grade daughters on the island of Kauai….Of the 34 furlough days planned this year and next, Yatsko said, `this is educational neglect.’…

“…The latest two-year contract…reduces their pay by nearly 8 percent as it slashes instructional days for students…Governor Lingle… imposed 14 percent budget cuts on the Department of Education…Hawaii's fourth and eighth graders' test scores lag behind in National Assessment of Educational Progress rankings.

“Hawaii's state employee furloughs haven't been limited to educators and school employees. One furloughed state employee is Raymond Catania...Catania, who has two teenage daughters, one a sophomore at Kauai High School, pulls no punches.

"`By forcing teachers to take furloughs, it hits our children. Rich families can send their kids to Punahou (where Obama studied) or other private schools, but the working class can't afford that so our kids get cheated.’ …Catania said that with Hawaii's huge military presence, it is painful to see military expenditures increase, while the host state suffers what he considers disproportionate cuts to education and human services….

On Oahu, Kyle Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee…sees the current economic crisis as a pretext to cut programs for political or ideological reasons….

"I have to question why the defense budget keeps going up and up and schools keep getting cut. It's unconscionable." Citing the National Priorities Project, Kajihiro points out that since 2001 Hawaii residents have paid a $3 billion share of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For that same money, Hawaii could have funded 54,718 elementary school teachers for a year," he said. Hawaii has around 13,000 public school teachers.”

--from a November 6, 2009 Truthout article by Jon Letman

 “Aloha! My name is Jim Scott, president of Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Punahou School…is the largest single-campus private school in America with 3,750 students. All of our students go on to college, with over 90 percent coming to the mainland for college…I personally benefited from financial aid as a former Punahou student; so did President Obama, Punahou Class of ’79, who attended Punahou from fifth through twelfth grades…Today 40 percent of the children in Honolulu attend a private school…”

from Punahou Prep School President James Scott’s Sept. 28, 2011 speech at the Office of Non-public Education’s Private School Leadership Conference

Obama’s Hawaiian Punahou Prep School Connection

Most working-class people in the United States attend or graduated from underfunded U.S. public school system schools—like the public schools of Hawaii. But some U.S. public officials, like Barack Obama, are preppie jocks who graduated from exclusive private schools like Hawaii’s Punahou School—which currently undemocratically requires the parents of most of its students in Hawaii to cough up over $17,000 to have their kids sit in a Punahou School classroom. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Democratic Obama administration failed to produce much change in the United States that created more affluence and more qualilty education for U.S. working-class families and public school students between 2009 and 2012? As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter noted in his 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“…Some black Chicagoans found Obama too `bourgeois’ for their tastes—too middle-class…The rap that Obama lacked a common touch reappeared in…[the 2008] campaign…The…reason Hillary Clinton hung on so long in the [2008] primaries was Obama’s weakness among white working-class voters…Obama…reminds them that a class of…elites had left them behind…As one of the…kids at the elite Punahou School in Honolulu, he [Obama] was a…jock…”

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 6

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger wrote the following about the U.S. power elite’s private school educational system:

“…Day students make up 20 percent of the student body at…such highly selective schools as Choate, Lawrenceville, Taft, and Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. At Groton, Deerfield and Phillips Exeter Academy, day students make up more than 10 percent of the student bodies…

“…Graduating seniors from the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., go on to Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard and…Stanford University…The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey…sends its graduates to Harvard and Columbia…Iona Preparatory School…regularly sends graduates to Cornell…and Yale…”

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 5:

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger indicated how even the prep school students in the U.S. power elite’s private school educational system who don’t score very high on their SATs have apparently still been admitted into certain prestigious U.S. colleges during the last 20 years:

“…20 of the 43 members in a recent graduating class at one of America’s finest private day schools only scored in the 500-600 range in the verbal SATs—well below the 800 maximum possible score. But…those kids with SAT scores in the 500-600 range are now attending such colleges as Duke, University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore…”

“Chances are that you and your child will be amazed…by the magnificent facilities at most…private schools. They’re far better than at most public schools—better even than at many colleges…

“…Even with a scholarship to pay for all or part of the tuition, there are heavy extra costs at a private school—clothes, because many private schools have dress codes, which can often add $250 to $500 a year to total costs…Aid from private schools is…limited…Status and snob appeal…are all too often the motives of some parents who send their children to private schools…

“…Independent private schools…have an average student-teacher ratio of 9.8 or one teacher for every 10 students. In sharp contrast, the average public school has a student-teacher ratio of 17.4, or more than 50 percent more.

“And that’s why…parents send their children to private schools—especially independent private schools…”

Unger also indicated how some of the prep schools in the U.S. power elite’s private school educational system differ from most U.S. public schools:

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 4:

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger indicated from where the U.S. power elite’s undemocratic private school system tends to select its student body:

“…Unlike public schools, private schools can pick the kids they want…Now that may sound elitist to some…Most private schools limit their enrollment…

“…There are a lot of private school children from extremely wealthy families. About one-third come from families with annual incomes of more than $100,000 [in 1999 money]…More than 16 percent of the kids at private schools in America are students of color, including…Asian-American…students. Foreign students make up an additional 3 percent of the student population at independent schools…

“…The prestigious Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, near Princeton, reaches outside the community to draw children…Its student body includes children from about 20 nations. In Lakeville, Connecticut, at the Hotchkiss School, a famed preparatory school that sends about one-third of its graduates to Ivy League…colleges,…10 percent are foreign nationals. At…Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, half the seniors go to Ivy League schools each year…About 10 percent are international students…”

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 3:

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger indicated how the preppie graduates of the U.S. power elite’s private school system undemocratically occupy a disproportionate number of leadership positions within U.S. society:

“…Although students from private schools represent only 12 percent of all school children in the United States, they fill 40 percent of the seats at the most selective…colleges. As they become adults, they fill a disproportionately large number of leadership positions in business, finance and government as during their higher education. More than 10 percent of the chief executives of America’s 1,000 largest corporations, for example, graduated from just four universities—Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford…”

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 2:

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger wrote the following about the U.S. private school educational system:

“Of the…school children in America,…nearly 11.2% attend private schools…Of the more than 111,000 schools in America, just over 26,000, or about 23.5% are private. The vast majority of these, however, are operated by religious organizations and churches. Only 1,500 private schools are `independent’ or unaffiliated with any church or state agency…

“…According to the U.S. Department of Education, private schools spend $36.54 per pupil for library facilities—more than double the…$17.58 spent per pupil in public schools…”

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 1:

In his 1999 book, How To Pick A Perfect Private School, Harlow Unger indicated how the U.S. power elite's private school system differs from the U.S. public school system:

"Instead of about 25 students per teacher, as in public schools, private schools assign only about a dozen students to each teacher (9.8 in independent schools that are unaffiliated with any church or government agency), thus guaranteeing the individual attention each child needs to thrive intellectually...

"Unlike private schools, public schools are required by law to accept all children in the school district, and a teacher has no choice but to admit them into the classroom...Private schools try not to admit...unruly children...The handful that slip through are summarily expelled as soon as they begin to disrupt school routine...Private-school teachers are thus free to devote all their time to teaching instead of dealing with disciplinary problems..."