 Welcome to the show. This is Think Tech Hawaii and the name of the show is the state of the state of Hawaii and I'm your host, Stephanie Stoll Dalton. Today we're going to visit with an expert who leads an essential state function of great benefit to the public. I think it's unlikely that many are unfamiliar with the role of education in our lives, our children's lives, and how important these agencies and the work of them are to us personally and professionally. In this state, there are numerous agencies working of various kinds, a non-profit and governmental and other kinds, quasi of governmental, and these agencies are working hard to make Hawaii's education the really best it can be for all children. And the agency that our guest leads and we're going to talk to him about today is the Hawaii P20, Partnerships for Education. And this organization offers numerous initiatives, many, many programs, and data, deep data collection to ensure that we know more and know enough and need to know more about equal education opportunity, making that happen in our state, and to support and coordinate policymaking where it can be strengthened to advocate for all students' well-being, which of course is a foundation for their achievement and for the systems and the schools and at learning venues to perform at the top quality that they need to for all students to fulfill their potential. So, welcome Executive Director Steven Schatz from the Hawaii P20 Partnerships for Education. I think it's really good to see you and I appreciate you taking the time to come on, and I think this is such a good time to be talking about education as it's returning, hopefully returning to quotes, normal, whatever that's going to be in the future. And you may have some things to say about what that could look like, seriously, that would endure out of this crisis we've been in. But tell us a little bit about your experience and your and the history of you with the development of the partnerships. Sure. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it. Hawaii P20 Partnerships for Education has been around for a little over 10 years, and it is a partnership among state agencies, and in most particularly the early education system, the K-12 public education system, and the University of Hawaii system. And our role and our goal is to create a smooth educational pipeline and meet workforce needs within Hawaii while empowering students to achieve their goals. And we do that through policy programs, and by analyzing data to make sure that the policies and programs we're implementing are actually making the kind of impact that we want to make. So we've been around for a while, and we try to stay focused on what students are achieving throughout the educational pipeline, and whether or not we as an education ecosystem in Hawaii are making the kind of impact that we want to make for our kids and for our community. Well, that's very good news, and all of that in only 10 years. Tell me about the mission and the goals. I did go over what I know from your work in general, but what your major mission is to address ultimately student achievement, right? But to do all of the things and to learn what all the things are that are going to put them on that track. It is, and I think, you know, we have this goal of 55 percent of working age adults having a college degree by the year 2025. And so we backwards map from there the educational outcomes we would need to be able to achieve that goal. And so we're measuring not only things like from an early elementary school test scores, but also through high school, how many kids are promoted in ninth grade, how many graduate on time, how many end up matriculating the college, whether students in fact need remediation in college. And so all of our work, all of our programs are about achieving results along the educational pipeline, and measuring those results for our students as a whole, but also for doing so in a way where we can see whether the programs that we're implementing are having the desired effect on various demographic groups, regional communities, and whether we're truly making an impact or not. So we're really, one of the things that we do is look a lot at the transition between educational institutions. We know that we lose a lot of students during those transition points. Even the transition between preschool and kindergarten is hard. The transition between middle and high school is really challenging. And then high school to college and college to the workforce. So while the institutions themselves are very hard at work on doing their job, the K-12 system does its job and UH system does its job, where we often lose kids is at those junctures. If you can imagine sort of pipe that hit that elbow, and sometimes the leak is right at that elbow. And so a lot of our work is about those transition moments. Well, in Hawaii, with our tradition of private schools, I would imagine that may have a different look after transition because they do tend to pull quite a high number of children out of the public schools. Isn't that the case? That is the case. We have a higher percentage than almost any state of students in the K-12 system who opt for private schools. But we have a good partnership with the private schools as well, the K-12 private schools. And our P-20 council includes representation from the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools, Shamanat and HPU are on our P-20 council. So we work with everyone. And it's really about providing a clean and efficient educational pipeline for Hawaii, whether you're choosing public or private. Well, that's interesting. I wanted to ask you, did you take on the P-20 at the outset, or did you get courage along the way to do this? What about that history? Oh, that's an interesting question. Actually, I wasn't there when P-20 was stood up. It was stood up with Dr. Tammy Chan, who's now at the UH community college system. And she did a great job envisioning what P-20 should look like. Actually, there were a ton of P-20 initiatives throughout the United States. And most of them have not had the influence and staying power as the one here in Hawaii. And we think part of that is that it wasn't attached to any particular political figure. In some states and jurisdictions, it might have been a mayor's initiative or a governor's initiative. And so when the next guy or gal came along, it went by the wayside. And President Lazar likes to talk about the fact that we've been through, I think, four university presidents and four superintendents. And now a few early learning directors, and we're still going strong, still staying focused on student achievement and making sure that we have a strong educational pipeline. At various times in our existence, we've had more or less emphasis on the early ed versus the high school part of the equation. But we've always been committed to that entire pipeline. Yeah. That's quite a commitment, Steven. That's a huge goal. I wanted to suggest that it might be due to your notion of partnership and how partnership works the best. Can you tell us a little bit about the partnership notion and how you've defined it and how it works for this longevity? Sure. I think the P20 Council has been a big part of that because the P20 is an organization at the shop with employees who do work on the ground and roll up their sleeves and help kids to apply for UH and do their FAFSA. And we do professional development on the groundwork. But we also have a P20 Council comprised of executive leadership throughout the state that guides the work overall. I would say over the past few years, one of the exciting aspects of our partnership that's a little bit newer is we're more focused on partnerships with business and industry. And starting to ask the questions of our business partners about what they perceive their needs to be in the workforce. And then working with our school partners to figure out how we can align the educational pipeline with workforce needs, with industry needs. And obviously that's going to be different on Kauai than it is here in Honolulu. But that partnership between all levels of the educational pipeline and businesses, whether they're smaller big businesses within communities has been a bit of a new twist. Because we know we want to have a better Hawaii and that means not only empowering our students to achieve their goals, but also many of them want to achieve those goals right here. They want to live here. And so to the extent that we can make them aware of the great jobs that exist here in this state, then it's a win-win. It's a win for the business, it's a win for the community, and it's a win for the individual student. Well, that is really important. I think everybody would like to have that happen. And that's a tough nut, though. But there are other things that are going to be happening too to diversify the economy and get us in a place where everybody can stay and be aloha in Hawaii. Well, then you do this work with partnership. And did different people take believes? I know you've already said you've recruited, not that you've recruited, probably people were very eager to get into your organization and participate. But can you just give us a little bit of how you manage all of that? Are you your executive director? So you're really having to take this boat out and make sure it goes in the right direction, right? Yeah, but I'd say there's so much excitement in the field right now, both in the K-12 space and in higher ed, and more energy than ever to collaborate. So probably 15% of our job is getting the right people in the room to have a conversation. And this pandemic has actually provided us a little bit of an easier opportunity to get in the room because the room's virtual. And so in particular for our rural remote partners, we've actually found more participation in our conferences than we had in prior years. And I get notes from some folks on the neighbor island saying, I hope you guys never go back to flying everyone into the convention center. This is so much better to have this on Zoom. I didn't have to wake up at 4.30 in the morning. And so I think we're starting to realize from a work perspective and an equity perspective, technology can be very helpful for getting the work done in an efficient way. Now, we miss the face to face. We miss the talking story over quality and doughnut. But there's got to be a balance there and I think we're learning along the way. So it is then the Hawaii education pipeline. Is that your major organizing principle? So could you talk a little bit about that? I noticed the website kind of working around that, certainly your data collection and display does, yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we think about the education pipeline. We think about having quality programs and then indicators to measure progress along that pipeline. As I mentioned, third grade is a really important moment. And whether or not students are reading and doing math at third grade is a huge predictor of success. Ninth grade is also a huge moment for our students. Some of our students who are academically prepared end up dropping out even though they're academically prepared. So we need to make sure that our high schools are places of Aloha, places where students feel comfortable and don't get lost. And then we do a lot of work connecting the programs in high school with the programs that are at the 10 University of Hawaii campus. And that's been a really fun initiative over the past few years to make sure that, for example, early college is offered in most of the 45 traditional public high schools. But most importantly, that students can see their pathway from high school through college and into a career. So our organizing principle, actually, from at least middle school is that there should be a pathway. There should be a pathway that takes you through your career. And now, how does the data collection that you do inform that pathway? How does that operate to be a partnership of the data and what happens in your program, rather than just an assessment thing? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think for us, the data, no one data point is going to tell a story. But it helps to tell a story, right? If you get a whole bunch of different pixels on the screen, the image becomes a little bit more vivid. And so we feel one of our roles is to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable as an education community for whether or not we're seeing progress. So that's sort of from the macro perspective. We need to, as an education community, measure our progress, see whether kids are graduating, see whether they're going to college with the remediation. And then the other is some of our data is helpful for regional teams. So on a more micro level, there are resources available, for example, at HawaiiDXP.org, where schools and actually K-12 schools and institutes of higher education can look at data to see what are the results of the educational pipeline in their region. And then there are some labor market data. We have a data sharing agreement with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations that enables us to see, for example, what the median wages are as they relate to the University of Hawaii program or the percentage of students who graduate from particular programs who end up in Hawaii's workforce. So those kinds of more micro level data sources can help with planning and help with creating pathways, pathways that make sense. Because I think we often ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, but we should also ask them where they want to live. Because if they want to live here, then the answer to then it's a little bit of a different set of questions and forces that might be available to them. So pathways is the organizing principle for both the programmatic work and the data itself. I'd say the analogy that I've used over the past few years is if you can imagine like a six mile hike and the first two miles is owned by the state and then the second two miles is owned by the city and then the third two miles is owned by a private owner and they're all beautifully maintained, but in between, I think when you get to the end of the first two, there's a whole bunch of brush and shrub and you actually, you got it, it's really, really hard to get from segment A to segment B. And so that's what we need to do a little bit of a better job of is not only creating good segments of the trail, but also making sure they're connected and that you as the person on the pathway, as the hiker, so to speak, can actually see the vision and know how to get through. Well, I think that's an interesting metaphor, absolutely, because I know that I've looked up some data on school performance through this new Stanford data collection and they were very interesting because they actually have data by school. So they can, they talk about the numbers at the level. And of course, the P-12 partnership was so compelling too, because you've got the data not only like that, but also by ethnicity or ethnic subgroup. And you don't much get to see anything on Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders or Filipino students. So that was really actually thrilling because I know not even the U.S. Department of Education doesn't take it there either. So it's really hard to get that data. So that is really interesting. But what I'm seeing when I happen to look up, that's really not the North Shore, but it's there Hau'ula and Laie in that area, because I know someone who might be living up there. And I saw that there was quite a bit of none of, well, under achievement in some of those schools up on that part of the coast. So I wanted to know, and I actually had years ago some work to do out there and it was challenging too. So when we have places like that, like we've had leeward coast focuses, you know, with many programs that not eight, nine. But now what about over there too, where they're underachieving? Are you saying that part of that going in between those different areas of the six mile hike, it's that that's tough to get that real specific focus in there? How do you work to address what Hawaii needs to address, which is to pump up this achievement gap, get these unders on top of or even with, you know, their achievement potential? Yeah, I mean, a lot of our work is focused on helping historically underrepresented students and student groups to matriculate the college. So a big source of funding and a big grant we have is gear up, which is a federal grant. Where we work in middle and high, middle and high schools with their community college partners, again, to establish pathways. And I think the first thing we need to do is have high expectations for our students. And then the second thing we need to do is create actual structure for them to succeed. And I think we've seen it happen. We've seen it done. We've seen the great work that's done at places like Waipahu High School, Waimea High School, Campbell High School. We're starting to see success throughout the state. So we know it can be done and we just need to continue to build the structure to make it happen. And it's happening. It's happening for sure. Well, I know the gear up program and it's a highly lauded and very valuable program and pretty steady funding if you follow the directions, which is the secret to federal funding as you follow the direction when you put the application in. But and I have the need and it certainly is there. So I mean, it's really good to see a program like that out there just pumping away with what it can do. But are you, and so you have this multifaceted approach. And they're high and having high expectations and bringing that self confidence up so that they understand that they can go where they want to go. If they choose to and then get the academic achievement piece in there too. I mean, that's a lot of says that's what you're weaving into. Yeah, I mean, I think there's I think you're right. There are structural components that need to be there like the counseling, like the rigorous coursework, even work based learning and early college, those are key components. But academic rigor is a piece of the puzzle too. So we need to make sure that students are are academically prepared. Because what we don't want to do is help students get into college who eventually then struggle once they get there. Right. So we want to make sure that kids are academically prepared to meet the rigors of college. And that's one of the reasons early college is so exciting is kids can actually get a taste of it, get some self confidence, have some success. And then they start to believe that they can they can go to college and they can succeed there because they've actually already, you know, many of our students are now graduating from high school with maybe six credits or two courses worth under their belt before they even before they even graduate. Such a terrific leg up. I mean, that's very, very helpful to be a little bit on the on the path, as you say. Well, I can't recall if Europe requires this, but you know, usually in federal funding, which I'm sure you, your funding is probably all across the board, right? I mean, I know you just long list of Castle Foundation funding and of course the CARES Act that and the Stubbsie Foundation and and also the UH Foundation and also Hawaii Community Foundation. And so and also what what are the and then those those grants that you're they're working you're working on. I'm sure there are many of them that are federal. And by the way, I saw that the National Science Foundation is just getting a huge chunk of money to to them, which means they're going to be putting out some, you know, programs in math and science, which might, which are probably of great interest. But in most of those federal grants, and especially those from the Department of Education, they usually ask, there's usually a section or some points that you can get if you can portray the future of the work and that it won't just vaporize once you get down to your last $10. So how do you all think about the stabilizing and continuing the work when you have because you can have gaps in the funding and that sort of thing. So what are the sorts of things you think about that? Yeah, I mean, this is where I think we're really lucky here to have such great partners on the ground, partners like the Castle Foundation, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Stupsky Foundation. We have a real commitment to making education work throughout the state. So it's, you know, I see what you're saying about you have to write in the sustainability portion of your grant. But it's true here, we're really all committed to making this stuff work. We are, you know, a lot of our work starts with a pilot program. And then we try and measure the success of that pilot and see if it can scale. Early college is a perfect example. It started out with Europe funds and some philanthropic dollars from the McInerney and Castle Foundations and the legislature eventually supported it. And that's a perfect example of one where it was successful throughout the state on various islands. And the legislature and the governor wanted to be supportive of the program. But it started with a little seed of an idea. And so, you know, we're hopeful about some of our other ideas maybe scaling as well. Well, you know, I think we can see the website from here. Is there anything in particular when we'd like to share from that? I mean, I don't know. I've looked at that if you might want to talk us through a little bit of it, that are your favorite parts? Well, what's my favorite right now is this next steps to your future program. This was a program that we stood up last spring and summer for the class of 2020 as a result of the pandemic. And so this was a program where students were able to take free community college classes during the summer. And they were connected with advisors who could help them via tech with things like filling out their college applications or completing their FAFSA or even polishing up their resume if they wanted to go straight into the workforce. So this program really, we had some success last summer and it was stood up really quick on the back of a napkin with some philanthropic support. And we're doing another version of it this summer. So the class of 2021, if anybody's listening, go to nextsteps.hawaii.edu. You can sign up for free community college classes or free advising via tech or both. And if you're part of the next steps cohort, you're going to be eligible for certain scholarships to go to college. So Next Steps is a great program that we wouldn't have been able to do without our wonderful philanthropic partners here in the state. Well, I just think people get frightened and confused about where do you start? What am I supposed to do, drive up to Benoa? I mean, what, you know, so that kind of specific information is really important. I'm glad you said it on this show so people know it's there. And that class has been pretty challenged. So they do deserve some assist there. Tell us a little bit about your Connecting for Success program. That seemed really interesting. And that that does show the data trend brings the data to strengthen their opportunities to benefit from school. Yeah, I mean, this was a program that we implemented for middle school students by helping them with their social emotional issues. And, you know, one of the things I think is important to note in education that sometimes people pose things as opposites when they're not. Like you're either a social emotional learning person or you're an academic rigor person. And the truth is, to the extent that your social emotional issues are balanced and under control, that's probably going to have a positive effect on academics and vice versa. And so we implemented that program and we found that those social emotional interventions actually had a positive effect, not only on behavioral outcomes but also academic outcomes. And yeah, I think it's one of the problems with education today, is people create opposites that are not true opposites. They put innovation over here and rigor over here and those aren't opposites. They put empowerment over here and accountability over here and those aren't opposites. So to me, I think we have to have more of a yes and mentality about the way we do our work. Oh, yes. And I think you did that on the website about that program and that piece of the pipeline. What was it? The miracle of our challenge change. Can you save anybody at mid school? Right? It was nicely done with that kind of idea in mind. Yeah. Answers, yeah. Yes, there are lots of things. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then, you know, my experience, I was an area superintendent for the DOE for a while and I would see, as I mentioned, students would fill out a 4140, which is an exception to compulsory education, which essentially is the form through which you either become homeschooled or maybe you go to work, but essentially you're not going to finish high school. And sometimes they would attach their test scores and the eighth grade test scores were exceeds proficiency. So we have to remember that the academics are important, but it's not the only thing that helps students to become successful. And some of our academically ready kids are struggling. And some of our kids need more academic readiness. So again, yes, and as we do all this work together. Oh, that's a really good point. I know I was at Georgetown University for some reason, wandering around. And here came this whole pack of kids with red t-shirts on, all staying gear up. And as I said, I've known about that program. And I just thought, my goodness, this is fabulous for these kids to be wandering around or getting a tour of Georgetown to see what it is that they can strive for. So getting them out and doing those kinds of things is just really important. And I know they try to get them into the advanced credit courses too. So there's lots to do. Well, I just think that your partnership notion is working for you. And with the heavy hitters that you have, you have really some top grade people on that, on that, on the, on the board, you call it the board, whatever. Yeah. Does that help with policymaking about what Hawaii's education needs to do? Is that another layer of that? Yeah. I mean, it's not a formal policymaking body, but it certainly helped to set directions for the state. Yeah. So have you felt like you've gotten some actual traction on some movement? You know, I think people feel so out of touch with the schools are untouchable, you know, we're so centralized here. Yeah. Although the centralization is, you know, it's a double edged sword, but it certainly one of the reasons we're able to collaborate a little, little more seamlessly, having one school district and one public higher ed. I would say with regards to the P 20 council in particular, you know, that direction setting was really important in establishing the 55 by 25 goal, which has helped to lead UHS and the DOE's work over the last seven to 10 years. Well, I mean, you're also in addition to this for the spectrum of each 20, all of the islands. So we haven't mentioned specifically about the outer islands, but that they're needing gear up kind of program, all these these approaches that you have are really important to having them be in touch with their their world and their possibilities here. And they don't have to go to another place. Yeah. And we have to really think as a community about what we're going to do to solve for the ruralness and the remoteness of the educational experience that students have. That's certainly a strength for them, but it also means a little bit more difficulty with access. And so I think technology can be a solution there. So we're working on standing up some early college courses where we aggregate a few kids from a few different schools, maybe a five kids from Hana and five kids from Ka'u and five kids from Lanai and, you know, and they can take an early college class with Honolulu CC or UH Manila. So, you know, this is the future, I think, where we we kind of cut down those borders and make it more efficient for our kids. Well, are you, is there anyone in particular that deals with the data that anybody that's a researcher person or policymaker might be interested in getting to know a little bit more about about your database and how it's informative for their work? Sure. So, Gene Osumi is our lead for the Hawaii P20 data team, and we at P20 are the managing partner of the data exchange partnership. And that data exchange partnership is the multi-agency partnership between DOE, University of Hawaii, DLIR, DOH, and DHS. And so we have some data sharing agreements among us that enable us to kind of take a look at whether or not we're making kind of impact we want to make throughout the educational pipeline. You know, there is, we're close to ending here, but there's a question, and the viewer is saying, does your plan include children with learning disabilities or does it focus on neurotypical kids? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, certainly all of our work focuses on ensuring that students who have typically been underrepresented in higher ed achieve. And so, and our data is always, it's always able to be disaggregated by ethnic group and by learning disability. And so we want people to have the utility of that disaggregation so they can help make the kinds of plans that they want to make for the pathways that make sense for the kids that they have. Really important, really important. So thanks for bringing that up about the disaggregation and which is more motivation or incentive for people to take a look at the website, look at the pipeline and see where all of this data plays out, see what trends they can find. But we've been, we need to get to Aloha time and just say how wonderful it's been talking with you remotely. And you are the executive director of the Hawaii E20 partnerships for education and the sister, Steven Schatt. And we look forward to hearing more from him as we go forward, especially as things change and schools do many more things. But thank you for listening. Aloha, Mahalo, and I'll see you again in two weeks on the state of the state of Hawaii. Thanks for your attention, everybody.