 Good afternoon and welcome to Pacific Partnerships in Education. I'm your host Ethan Allen here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks for joining us. With me today in the Think Tech studios is Paul Hattuck, President and CEO of Prel, Pacific Resources for Education Learning. Welcome Paul. Thank you Ethan. And we're here to talk about some current trends and issues in Pacific Education. And in particular to look at some of the upcoming challenges that the students and for that matter the educators in some Pacific Islands are facing. So part of this is, this extends well beyond education, right? And there are sort of political and other issues that are impacting education right now in the Pacific. One of the biggest ones coming up is the COFA, the Compact for Association, right? That is the COFA, the compacts with the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. The COFA for all the education down there and the grants are scheduled to end in 2023, which would be actually October 1st 2022 for the fiscal year. The question when that happens is what will fund all the education in the Marshalls and the Federated States of Micronesia. So you're saying these US monies basically are what now support all the education and all the health down there is paid for under these compacts. And is there any talk about renewing them? We are starting to hear that there's a consideration to look at what happens after 2023. Now this compact that's ending was set up so that money was being put aside for a trust fund. But as we get closer to the cutoff date it's clear there will not be enough money in that trust fund for those two nations to be fiscally independent in the areas of health and education. So the question is what comes next? The biggest concern of course is that if the education and the health systems down there aren't funded or if they collapse larger numbers of people from the region will be moving here to Hawaii. Right. And it's already some concern right that we already have an out migration of Prick of Youth there who basically see better futures themselves in other places. Yes about one-third of the population for the RMI and the FSM from the Marshalls and the Federated States have left. And this has been a significant brain drain down in those two regions and a large number of them are coming here to Oahu in fact. Right. And they can find work here which they can't there that really is really limited options there and unfortunately that sort of sets up a vicious circle sort of situation right. Yeah the regions down there have some very unique complex issues to solve. How do you have an economy on a small island? How do you try to set up a tourist business if only one airline flies down there and they charge more than anything else. What do you do in some of the more traditional islands where maybe Sunday is a very holy day you're not allowed to go swimming or do many tourist type activities. We're never going to have factories down there. It's a fair question to ask can these islands become completely fiscally independent. Right. But this was sort of was the point originally of the Compacts of Free Association was the US was supposed to help them grow out of this colonized sort of dependency state into independent self-governing self-sufficient nation. And that's a completely different show right there. Right. I think 35, 40 years in there's a lot of disappointment down in the region that they don't feel they've gotten the assistance that's been needed. We appreciate the money. Large amounts of money have been spent down there but not as much training and assistance was given as was probably necessary for down there. I should point out by the by Paul lived in Koshari and Chuk for 26 years or something like that. Yeah. Roughly. So it has a great in-depth knowledge of the situation there working in the education field specifically. So this is great stuff. So, so presuming that this compact funding ends but the the compacts themselves are maintaining in force right that is so we are still obligated to patrol protect those waters and maintain some rights over those waters around the islands and meanwhile their citizens have a right to come and work freely in the US without visas or anything right. Yeah. The underpinning understanding of the compact was the US wanted strategic value in the northern and central Pacific and it's three million square miles of the Pacific. So the compacts were kind of a you stay on our side we'll give you protection in return we're going to give you money and this idea free entry you may enter the United States and the original idea was we want your college age students to come here get a college education we're going to make it as easy for them to come as possible so they don't need to have the visa or some of the other forms but when they're done they return home. That part's not been happening and in the last ten years as the health situation has deteriorated down there due to a change in diet more and more people are moving here and staying here this has had a negative impact on the region down there and there are growing concerns in Hawaii and in Guam about the impacts on health education infrastructure especially in who's funding all this. Right and it's it really actually goes beyond this I was at a conference in San Diego last week talking with a gentleman from the University of Arkansas and there's a large Micronesian community there in Arkansas now. There's a huge Marshallese community is the largest Marshallese community outside of the nation and they're all working for Tyson Chicken and for Walmart and the interesting thing is that in Arkansas both Walmart and Tyson Chicken are putting some skin in the game they've done a lot to help this community in the areas of education and health and I don't want to offend anybody but I'm not sure we're seeing that same thing here you go into any Walmart in Hawaii you go in any Rosses or Longs or McDonald's a lot of the working force there is made up of the Micronesian population we're not really seeing those private businesses playing a greater role in helping solve or address some of these issues that the community is facing as they come here and they're definitely benefiting from the Micronesian community being here. For instance the Marshallese on average in Hawaii have an average income far, far, far below what almost any other group has right. Well they get the minimum wage jobs you work usually second, third shift jobs and it's not a community that's going to ever go on strike or really raise issues they're hard working, quiet community so there are things I think they tolerate that other groups may not tolerate. But it does put a burden on our systems here our health care system again some people come in and need health care and are not used to the intricacies of maneuvering the US health care system right? Oh it's you know I had to go to Queen's Hospital a couple months ago I had never seen a hospital that big before I wasn't aware how to fill out the forms that you have to fill out you go into an island hospital everybody's related to you and it's usually one building one floor you know where to go you just ask your auntie or uncle it's so much more difficult here and I speak English so imagine what it's like to go in and you've got ten pages to fill out of all the diseases you may have ever had and your allergies we've not done that before so it can be very very difficult for an islander coming in and many of them are coming in for diabetes other things like that because even after 35 years of compacts down there there's not one dialysis machine these are some of the things that maybe I think the US side could have done a better job training local doctors and nurses helping get necessary equipment down there so people don't have to come over here for some of the reasons they're coming health-wise interesting interesting and there's sort of similar parallel situation education right that is like the classroom on an island of Chuk for instance looks very very different from a typical US classroom and this you know I speak to teachers quite often or and this brings back the first question I always ask the teachers is why do we send children to school and you get all sorts of answers but pretty much boils down to to have a better life so that they have a better life right what's a better life on a small island where the temperature is always perfect you'll never ever be homeless because you'll always have a place to stay you've got laps lobster and crab everywhere you got yellowfin tuna jumping out of the water you got trees filled with breadfruit the basic needs that we learn about economics class food clothing and shelter will always be met why should I spend six hours a day learning stuff that even those of us in America growing up knew half the time we were learning stuff we were never ever going to use so why have an education system a Western education system on a small island in the West and in the islands I mean then they come here and everything is different you gotta go to school every day school is all day long and there's you mom and dad can't just come pick you up at ten o'clock to take you to a funeral so a lot of these cultural differences they're facing and struggling with and the Hawaii school systems are frustrated too we're trying to find solutions to make this an easier transition yeah it'd be interesting to look actually to look back to Arkansas and see what what they've actually done because they're I'm sure it was a even a bigger shock to their school system basically having these this influx be interesting to see how they've adjusted over the years it's been about what 20 years been quite a while now and for a long time things were going well and it's just been the last two years were suddenly the double-edged sword of I know I can get a job at Tyson chicken I know I can get a job at Walmart so why should I graduate high school and go on to college or think that way when I've got this guaranteed job you're coming from an island where minimum wage is 90 cents for a dollar an hour suddenly you can get a job at 11 or 12 dollars an hour that sounds like a dramatic improvement in life and so just the last few years in Arkansas all of a sudden they're facing rising dropout rates because the kids know they have a job so they're they're trying to figure out how to handle this new shift so things were going well for a while suddenly there's a rising dropout rate because they know my future is taken care of and interesting interesting I hadn't been aware of this trend now that is that's very worrisome right because you always want to set a education system up where people understand the value of it and want to continue to pursue it and realize that education is a good for the individual and good for the culture and we think that way right I want to go to college I get a better job I want to get my masters I get my PhD so things can be better but that's where I keep coming back to but if your whole life is your basic needs are constantly met why should I work the way they watch us the way we live and the amount of debt we get into and how hard we work to get more stuff and be honest I kind of liked it the way it was down there where you learn to be content you have the the basic things you need I'm spending a lot more time with my family so the there's a priority for education I just think it's a little bit different than maybe what we see huh okay interesting the so there's you're talking rather really a rather profound cultural difference so how then we reshape the education system in the islands or can we reshape the education system or should we reshape the education system islands to better prepare our students to continue to live their sort of the same lifestyle they've lived and that's one of the conversations we have in these school meetings what's the point of education my philosophy has always been it's to prepare a young person for a future that benefits themselves and their local community if their local community is a small island where basic needs are being met maybe we need some people who can be police maybe we need some people who can help build houses we need a couple medical workers training kids for those things instead of you need to take 12 years of math need to take 12 years of English you better study your world history a lot of that stuff you and you and I went to school we knew that stuff was a waste of time we're not supposed to say that educators but everybody else knows it's true why do we do the things even here in Hawaii I think it may be time that we really look because what's the only thing emphasize now language and math we're doing all this testing and language and math we're sacrificing creative type classes where the imagination was spurred and we're taking we're forcing kids to do things that maybe 50 60 years ago weren't considered as important what do we need in Hawaii what we know what who is it the same thing we need in Maui is that the same thing we need in the marshals prepare kids to be successful in their local communities is what I think we need to look at yeah and it's very interesting because you're faced with kids who are gonna come out and want this wide range of options right some kids yes are just really gonna want to sort of mel right in with our community live a very traditional lifestyle but other kids may want to go out and explore the range of higher education advanced careers game gaming whatever whatever the situation may be electrical engineering bioengineering and how do you prepare those students well clearly if they're coming from the small islands and they're moving here they have to have better language skills that's been one of the biggest issues we speak whatever language is on an island all the time because that's how we communicate when they come here and everything suddenly in English and their five and six grade levels behind it can be very very difficult frustrating for the teacher to who's got 25 30 kids in a classroom then a couple kids far behind so one of the first things we're trying to help the Hawaii State Department edge education with us let's take a step back and if students are coming from a situation where they're far behind in English and their 14 15 16 years old let's set up a transition school for them that's that's perfect and we are going to explore that more deeply when we come back right now we're going to take a brief one minute break here Paul Hattuck is the president and CEO of prel and I'm your host Ethan Allen and we'll be back on with specific partnerships in education in one minute hi I'm Bill Sharp host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii join me every Monday afternoon from five to five thirty Hawaii standard time for an insightful discussion of contemporary Asian affairs there's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very very well informed just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un the possibility of Xi Jinping the leader of China remaining in power forever we'll see you then and you're back here in partnerships in education here on Think Tech Hawaii I'm your host Ethan Allen with me today as Paul Hattuck president and CEO of prel specific resources for education and learning and we've been talking about some issues around education and some of the current trends related to the particular to the ending of the compacts of free association funding cofa funding and just before the break Paul was was just starting to sort of say a little bit about some an idea that we have to help really prepare students who come particularly from small outer islands students who have really been gotten a very different sort of education education from their elementary and middle school levels that really doesn't really prepare them to enter it say in high school on par with with kids who have been through the K-12 system here now for the sake of argument let's just call those sort of transition schools this idea that you're talking about so maybe you can tell us a little more what you envision there well one of the things we want to look at is you know I've been a teacher for 25 30 years I've been a principal I know what it's like to be in a classroom with 25 or 30 students and two or three of them are way behind where they should be you end up spending a lot more time with those students than sometimes you do with the other students and can be frustrating especially in today's US because so much emphasis is placed on testing again that's another topic but that's the way the system works so if I've got 25 students who do really well in a test and four students who scored very very low pulls my whole average down this is where I'm hearing from teachers and principals in the state of Hawaii we want to help these kids but we're in a situation where it's just taking too many of our limited resources what's your idea the idea that I've been pushing and getting some very good cooperation from the Department of Education is setting up some transitional schools especially for the older students the 14 to 15 year-old is coming in who don't speak much English let's take a time out because we want them to be successful let's take a time out maybe six months or a school year where we just really emphasize English language learning we do a lot of time on a culturation how to behave in a brand new culture how to behave in a brand new country where you don't have the big family safety net that you did down there where everybody around you was a relative and was watching how you behaved now you're here where it's a completely different situation how to fill out paperwork how you know how to do things in a timely manner because we emphasize time here how to just make them be more successful as they fit in but it doesn't have to start day one which is what we do now they get off the plane we throw these kids in a school situation right and they're not prepared for that right then they get into sort of just a cycle of failure right they get into trouble there's a cycle of failure and one of the things we've heard too and nobody has denied this some principles have admitted to it is they get the students to sign these forms where they opt out and choose to home school but they're not home everybody knows they're not home schooling because the parents are busy working but it removes the student from the classroom setting so it takes a little bit of pressure off the school the school can say we wanted to help but you they've opted to home school what's resulting is you've got more young people out on the streets now without an education can't get a job they're bored this is not a recipe for success so let's hear what the principals and teachers are saying this is a for some of them it's just a little bit extra work for the resources they don't have and let's help this group coming in by putting them in a transitional type school for six months or a year build up those skills and then mainstream them into the classroom so that they can be successful plus you know that could actually also serve as a as a sort of an immersion in American culture that some of them at the end that might decide no you know I really actually I want to go back yes you know I don't really want I don't want to buy into this I see what this is gonna cost me basically in terms of losing giving up things yes taking more effort more time and so now I will opt to go back and I'll be much happier where I where I was and I want to carefully emphasize a large number of the young people coming in are fitting in fine there there are some kids especially from outer islands where English is never used for schools a lot more relaxed than it is here who would benefit from a slower transition to the system yeah I sort of a very targeted approach to really give them the multiple levels of support they need as you say an emphasis on culture emphasis on language people really they are I don't want to say 24-7 but but a much sort of deeper safety net as a war yeah again it's all about how can we help them be successful these kids are all very very smart they speak many languages there are a lot of things they can do that we can't do it's a lot of it's about suddenly we're throwing them in a brand new language system if if we one year we did all of our American tests in the Japanese language what would happen to test scores right and it's got nothing to do with the intelligence of the students taking the test you just can't read the question right and that's kind of what we're asking some of these kids to do and it's making it difficult so let's look at an alternative that benefits everybody right because the a lot of the school systems in the region mandate that schooling take place largely in English from certainly from broadly early about fourth grade on and yet the teachers themselves are not trained in English the kids speak English nowhere except in school right so you've really got a very bad situation and they mean when they stop they don't teach Chuke's and Chuke's literature and Chuke's history so much right yeah it's very difficult we don't have Chuke's textbooks we don't have Chuke's history books and the few history books we have are usually from an outsider's view of what's taking place in these these islands so the education system down there is failing right then they're coming here and they're being put in a situation where it's very difficult to be successful right so I think there's a lot of questions we should address and I think we're on a pathway to addressing some of these issues excellent that sounds sounds like a really like a potentially you know viable and productive solution where we take these people the students really need this extra this extra time to get a culture to get language skills I need to really get that understanding in place about what what the value of schooling is what the norms of schooling are in this country and that doesn't always happen now as you say in the current situation and but certainly keeping these students off the streets out of potential legal trouble they'll be getting into fairly quickly out of teaching them a trade teaching them some basic work skills to where if you're going to live here you can be successful here versus kind of what's happening now for again not for a large number right it's many of them are doing well but we've got this other group what can we do to help them and maybe take a little bit of the burden off teachers and school principals right and so so yeah it's a very sort of separate track just to help yes help those kids and realistically well that sounds look potentially I can a sort of expensive option probably right probably it's much cheaper in the long run I think in the long run you're gonna save money because when these kids are turning in their 20s and they can't get work what's happening them and I'm sure that's costing money too right and meanwhile the teachers are gonna have a class that are better able to deal with more productively there's gonna be lots of benefits those kids and for the teacher themselves and for the whole school that's the hope that's the goal yeah exactly so this this sounds like a good thing and you say you're getting positive responses from the Department of Education we've had some good meetings with high-level leadership they've asked us to put together a plan we're just starting to work on some details but to get something started as quickly as possible seems like it might be something where the community colleges to what we want to work on that well what we'd like to do is we'd like to get there's a large number of students from the region in the colleges here at UH at Shamanad HPU make maybe some of their credits they're spending time at the schools so that if they need to they can help translate or I think sometimes the students are comfortable when they see someone there and very often they're all related and so there's an easier transition of respect if that's my older cousin I have to listen to them it gets the community involved I just think it's a good way too to get these students in college to think about teaching and going back to the islands and teaching we get better teachers down there I think we alleviate some of these problems sounds like an excellent win-win kind of situation there where yeah the kids who are in community college get some practice in being good mentors be good friends being role models as it were and that that could do them overly good too yeah excellent that's that's that's wonderful what about for the younger kids do you think the young kids don't have this problem or we find you know I've having taught as many years as I had young kids learn young kids can learn different languages young kids quickly adapt I think the plan we're looking at now starting at fifth grade up through twelfth grade okay below that you'd be you know island kids are so flexible so adaptable they're so smart that they tend to fit in okay so it's more than the middle school high school when you get yeah okay older students again that the episodes we keep hearing are the 14 the 15 the 16 year olds coming with maybe second grade or third grade level English right what do you do with them right exactly they're not far behind you got a you know you can't just expect them to know and you can't plop them in second grade either so they won't fit in the dance no no well excellent so this is a this transition school idea sounds like a great a great potential potentially valuable idea a wonderful solution will take a lot of worst careful planning and have to be well flat out as to how it gets done but again maybe we can get some of these corporations to help help support we're hoping to and we'd also like to you know any student from the islands who's in college feel free to contact us at Prell feel free to contact me we'd like to get you involved in the program excellent excellent so you heard it there from Paul Haddock president CEO of Prell if you're a Micronesian student who's doing well and all and I want to help out with this process of bringing more students into the in a greater success in the education system I guess get me make a few dollars to there we go all right well excellent Paul this has been a very enlightening discussion I thank you for taking the time from your busy day to come and talk to me and I wish you great success with this I look forward to perhaps getting you back on a little later I appreciate it we can see how it's developed thank you very much and I hope you will come back then and join us on Pacific partnerships in education on our next show until then I'm Ethan Allen signing off