Taking Responsibility for Our Schools:
A Series of Four Articles on Education in Micronesia

By Francis X. Hezel, S.J.
With an Introduction by Hilda C. Heine

Pacific Comprehensive Regional Assistance Center, Region XV

Francis X. Hezel, S.J., is the Director of Micronesian Seminar, a pastoral-based research institution serving Micronesia. He taught at and directed Xavier High School, a Catholic high school located in Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), for many years before moving to Pohnpei, FSM, to establish Micronesian Seminar at its current location. He has written numerous books and articles about Micronesia.

Hilda C. Heine, PREL Scholar for Freely Associated States Education, is the former Director of the Pacific Comprehensive Regional Assistance Center at Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, as well as the former President of the College of the Marshall Islands and Secretary of Education for the Ministry of Education of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Introduction

By Hilda C. Heine

Mobilizing communities to support educational improvements is one of the challenges confronting educators in the Freely Associated States (FAS), which consists of the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. The FAS are currently under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Efforts to expand public school education during the period of the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands alienated, in many ways, Micronesian communities from their schools. Schools became properties of the state and central governments that built, furnished, and staffed them. Efforts to integrate cultural and traditional life that was valued by communities into school activities were discouraged in favor of more “academic content,” which included an academic command of the English language and memorizing names of presidents of the United States. Schools became places to learn to be “smart” in the Western sense and to get ahead in a “modern” existence that was becoming the norm in most urban locations in Micronesia. In time, schools became strange places to many community members. They were not only strange places, but teaching values and beliefs contradictory to island lifestyles as well.

This series of articles, Taking Responsibility for Our Schools, was produced as part of the Taking Responsibility for Our Schools: A Community Education Project. The project, conducted in 2001 in the FAS, was a collaboration between Micronesian Seminar and Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL). Other products include two videos, Islands of Excellence and The Goals of Ed U. Cation, and six radio programs presented in the local languages of the FAS.

All four articles in this series were written by Father Francis X. Hezel, Director of Micronesian Seminar, while serving as a Visiting Scholar at PREL in September 2000. Assistance in researching, conceptualizing and reviewing articles, and collecting data from education departments in the region was provided by PREL staff who served on the project. The staff consisted of Micronesian and non-Micronesian educators at PREL, including Keres Petrus (Chuuk), Destin Penland (Palau), Rod Mauricio (Pohnpei), Martin Weirlangt (Pohnpei), Cheta Anien (RMI), Kavita Rao, and Ormond Hammond. Members of the Pacific Curriculum and Instruction Council from the FAS also provided assistance in reviewing and critiquing articles, as well as in collecting educational statistics used in the articles. PREL Service Center personnel and educators in each of the FAS took active roles in planning the project, reviewing articles, and serving as community liaison.

The hard work of Micronesian Seminar in producing the two accompanying videos and several radio programs for the Community Education Project is gratefully acknowledged. The project is indebted to Micronesian Seminar staff, including Jason Aubuchon, Patrick Blank, Anelisa Garfunkle, Augustine Kohler, and Eugenia Samuel for their dedication and professionalism.

The Community Education Project came out of the recognition that it is through community participation in education that education can improve. In the FAS, the level of community engagement and participation in education has to rise to an acceptable level not only in terms of the number of people involved, but, more importantly, in the substance of that involvement. It is foolish to expect more from communities when we have not given them opportunities to understand what modern education is all about and their role in shaping that education. To engage communities in a modern education system, members of the community must be able to discuss with educational leaders the purpose and goals of education. They must also feel a sense of ownership for the education institution in their community. The Community Education Project attempts to bridge the knowledge gap between those who provide education and those who receive it.

The goal of the project has, therefore, been to work toward establishing a consensus on broad educational goals in each of the FAS entities by examining different visions of education and its educational goals and by presenting strengths and weaknesses of each. The next step will be an attempt by communities to rebuild that sense of school ownership that is so critical but missing today.

“What Should Our Schools Be Doing?” is designed to assist FAS citizens in looking at their own society by examining selected demographic and economic realities as important backdrops to education. Information is offered on population growth rate, size, and significance of emigration in recent years, and employment opportunities in countries and overseas, especially the United States, in the near future. It also attempts to present a realistic view of the economic realities today and how these would seem to affect the broad goals of education that currently exist.

“How Good Are Our Schools?” attempts to show the current status of schooling in each entity by presenting educational statistics currently available at each education department/ministry. Based on these statistics, the quality of schooling is compared within an entity and across entities. This article is the most controversial of the four articles. First, there is no uniform definition across the region of what constitutes a good school. Second, there were limited school and student data from which to make meaningful comparisons among schools. Although test scores are not the only quality indicators from which to judge the success of a school, these were the only data consistently available across the region from which comparative analyses could be made. The data suggest rather than prove that some schools are better than others. There are other measures for which school success could and should be gauged. The challenge is for communities and educators in the region to identify those criteria based on what they perceive the purpose of education to be for their respective communities.

“The Myth of Education: A Second Look” presents the current reality vis-a-vis job opportunities in the FAS. The fact is that there are limited job opportunities in each of the entities, as compared to the number of high school and college educated young people. This means that although education was once a key to a job, it is no longer the case. The lure of easy jobs abroad has attracted young people away from completing formal education, particularly college education. If this trend continues, it will have a lasting impact on the ability of these new island nations to compete in a global economy unless effective policies are put in place to deal with the emigration issue. The ability of emigrant populations to successfully adapt and “make it” in their newfound homes abroad, particularly in the United States, is a shared concern for the FAS and the United States, but primarily for FAS island nations. The people are national resources whether or not they are physically present in the home country.

“Islands of Excellence” features good schools across the region and identifies essential elements that go toward making a school a successful one. This final article describes a few of the innovative approaches to curriculum adaptation and management strategies that have made featured schools successful. Some of the common themes that stand out in these successful schools are strong community support and strong school leadership provided usually, but not always, by the school principal. The lesson is that given community support and strong school leadership, successful schools are possible across the region, regardless of limited resources and, in some cases, lack of trained teachers.

The articles do not present the final authority on the status of education in the FAS. They are one perspective on the issues and challenges faced by educators in the FAS. The articles should serve to start a discussion among community members, FAS educators, and others interested in education in the FAS. Arguably, the indicators of success used may not be as relevant for all FAS people, nor are they reflective of cultural values, belief systems, and standards that should inform success in a community and cultural sense. However, they can serve as the basis from which to question the relevance of educational frameworks that inform the development of educational curriculum, standards, and pedagogy in the islands.

In the end, it will be difficult to establish a consensus of the broad goals of education without government, community, and traditional leaders coming together to discuss and clarify development goals of the respective countries. As two of the three FAS countries discuss their future relationships with the United States, it is incumbent on their leaders to be strategic about development policies that form the basis of any future Compact relationship. There are many lessons to be learned from the past 15 years of Compact relationship and development policies that have resulted in the current state of education in the FAS. Unless the FAS entities are able to establish a consensus around a realistic vision of development in the future, 15 years from now the education challenges will remain as they are today.

What Should Our Schools Be Doing?

By Francis X. Hezel, S.J.

What is the purpose of education in the Freely Associated States of Micronesia today? Ask that question of Micronesians, and the responses fall into three distinct categories.

• Manpower Training. Advocates for this goal seek economic improvement by providing young people with the skills to find employment, no matter how menial.
  
  
• Cultural Preservation. Many people believe that the traditional culture is under attack by modern society. They say the first call of education is to turn out individuals who can maintain some continuity with the past.
  
  
• Academic Skills. The guiding belief here is that education ought to teach people to read, write, and think. By providing the best and the brightest with a first-rate education, some of these graduates might return to lead their nations out of the economic desert.

Where Students Go
Before examining these different views more closely, let’s look at where students go when they leave school. There are three streams of young people flowing to different destinations. Some return to the village where they live on the land. Some end up in town seeking whatever employment can be found. Others go abroad to find work in the U.S. or one of its flag territories such as Guam or Saipan.

At one time, school dropouts tended to head back to the village, high school graduates clustered in the towns in search of full-time employment, and those with some college background and exposure to life in the U.S. might establish roots abroad.

But today’s picture is very different. Consider these real-life examples from recent years.

• A young man drops out of elementary school in the 6th grade and heads for Guam to work in construction as a day laborer. He speaks little English and has never been overseas. He has learned some carpentry skills from his grandfather, who attended a Japanese carpentry school prior to World War II.
  
  
• A young woman returns from Australia where she earned her college degree. The daughter of a mixed marriage, she has grown up speaking English and is uncomfortable with her Micronesian language. She decides to seek employment in town because she wants to care for her younger brothers and sisters.
  
  
• A graduate from a private high school has lived in town for a couple of years following his graduation but can find no job there. He attends a few workshops on sponges and shells and serves as a teacher’s aide for a while. He decides to return to the village to fish and farm and perhaps find work for a small cash income.

These examples illustrate how complicated our young people’s needs have become. The 6th grade dropout requires basic English skills and solid work habits to succeed in Guam. The college graduate may need advanced training if she is to find a government job. She must also improve her use of the local language. The high school graduate can live off the land in a supportive community, but he also desires a part-time source of cash.

What then should Micronesia’s schools teach to support its young people in achieving their goals?

Goal 1: Manpower Training
Advocates of manpower training view education as a way to bring about prosperity for both the individual and the society. They might say something like this: “Micronesia doesn’t need eggheads, more planners, and college grads. It needs people who can replace the expatriates now working in the islands.” To them, a relevant education is a matter of providing the skills that young people need to get jobs.

Supporters of this goal are openly critical of the type of education offered Micronesian students throughout the past decades on the grounds of its irrelevancy. They argue that while emphasis on the humanities is fine for the U.S. and other developed countries, the islands don’t have the career choices offered Americans and Europeans. Education is relevant only to the extent that it enables young people to find jobs in a society that is still under-developed. By emphasizing vocational training, Micronesia’s education system could produce employable young men and women to help turn around its economy.

Even today, many parents plead with teachers to provide job training to their sons and daughters. Educators look with covetous eyes on the large sums of federal funds earmarked for preparing youth for the “world of work.” They question why they shouldn’t stress manpower training in the schools if that’s what it takes to get program money. Members of Congress, pressed by their constituents to show economic progress, pressure the schools to prepare young adults to find and hold jobs. All subscribe to the view that schooling – above all else – ought to provide a livelihood for young men and women, while simultaneously moving the national economy forward.

But Where Are the Jobs?
For all the talk about preparing young people for work, the harsh reality is that there are few jobs available in most parts of Micronesia today. The governments are cutting back on available positions, and growth in private business has not met expectations. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau (Palau) under pressure from donor nations, are cutting the size and cost of government. FSM has reduced the number of positions through voluntary retirements. RMI is going through this painful process now, and Palau is under pressure to follow.

Although there has been some growth in the private sector in FSM and RMI, it has not met expectations. Promises of a thriving local fishing industry and an increase in tourism have not materialized. In the last decade, employment in FSM and RMI has grown, though marginally. Only in Palau has there been unambiguous growth, thanks to the tourist boom. However, the growth of the tourist industry has not created a large number of jobs for Palauans. Many of the newly created jobs are low-paying positions that are being filled by expatriates. The slowdown in job growth in most of Micronesia is reflected in Table 1.1.

Sources: For 1970, figures were taken from 34th Annual Report to the United Nations, by the U.S. Dept. of State, 1982, p. 51. For 1980, figures for FSM were taken from First National Development Plan, by the FSM Office of Planning and Statistics, 1985, Table 8.6, p. 92; for RMI, from First Five-Year Development Plan, by the RMI Office of Planning and Statistics, 1985, p. 42; for Palau, from Statistical Yearbook 1994, by the Republic of Palau Office of Planning and Statistics, 1995, Table 37. For 1990, figures for FSM were taken from Proceedings, by the FSM National Government, 1999, p. 31; for RMI, from Marshall Islands Statistical Abstract 1992, by the RMI Office of Planning and Statistics, 1994, Table 6.7, p. 53; and for Palau, recalculated by the author based on figures from 1990 Census, by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1992, Table 61, p. 90. For 2000, figures for FSM were taken from FSM Economic Statistics, by the FSM Dept. of Economic Affairs, 2000, p. 18; for RMI, recalculated by the author based on figures from 1999 Census, by the RMI Office of Planning and Statistics, 1999, p. 187; for Palau, recalculated by the author based on figures from 2000 Census, by the Republic of Palau Office of Planning and Statistics, 2000, Table 55, p. 93.

Sources: 1994 FSM Census, by the FSM Office of Planning and Statistics, 1994, Table 57, p. 59; 1999 Census of Population and Housing, by the RMI Office of Planning and Statistics, 1999, Table 1, p. 37; 1995 Census of Population and Housing, Republic of Palau, by the Republic of Palau Office of Planning and Statistics, 1995, Table 55, p. 91.

Sources: Figures for 1980 were taken from “Micronesian Emigration: The Brain Drain in Palau, Marshalls and the Federated States,” by F. Hezel and M. Levin, 1990, p. 42. Figures for 2000 were estimated by the author.

What Job Training Is Needed
Businesses often are willing to provide the specialized training that applicants need for the few jobs in Micronesia. Restaurants, stores, and bars do their own training, as do the companies that hire people to prepare tuna loins for shipment to Tokyo for the sashimi market. Even those applying for more technical positions, such as telephone repair, can learn the skills needed for their new jobs through the company that hires them.

What do employers look for in applicants? A woman who owned a bar on Guam employing several Micronesians had one simple requirement for employment: show up for work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. A businessman on Pohnpei remarked that he hires only females. According to him, they are more dependable than men.

Instances where job recruits need specialized training are rare. Generally, employers are looking for someone who is dependable, knows how to work a full day, and learns quickly. They downplay previous work skills and emphasize work habits and the ability to learn new things.

In view of the economic realities in Micronesia today and the poor job prospects everywhere except Palau, young people seeking employment can either create jobs for themselves or leave the islands for places where jobs await them. The crowded airports in Pohnpei on Sunday evenings, with 30 or 40 garlanded young men and women bidding goodbye to their families, suggest that an increasing number of people believe they must seek employment in U.S. cities like Orlando or Kansas City. These people include degree holders as well as elementary and high school dropouts.

Recruiters who employ Micronesians as care facility attendants for the elderly plantation workers in the Maui pineapple fields or as workers at Sea World are not necessarily looking for skilled employees. Like the local island businesspeople, they are looking for employees who possess a good attitude toward work, reliability, and the readiness to learn new things. All workers, especially those traveling abroad, also need adaptability skills. In short, potential workers need a solid basic education to prepare them for the world of work.

Goal 2: Cultural Preservation
Many Micronesians believe that culture is the most important thing to be learned in school. They argue that identity is grounded in culture and language, and cultural preservation is all the more critical in a day when traditions are under attack from the forces of modernization. They view formal education as a powerful Western institution that represents one of the main threats to culture. Therefore, the school’s function should be to educate the young in their traditional culture rather than to wean them from it. Local language should also be a priority, even if this means de-emphasizing English.

Culture is an essential dimension of any legitimate education. But understanding the relationship between education and culture requires a closer look at how culture is defined and the ways in which education can respond to and serve cultural needs.

The culture of a people is always evolving. Therefore, the definition should include the living culture found in the islands today – not just some historical relic preserved in a jar on a museum shelf. Culture today includes not only the oral narratives and chants of the past but also the automobiles, VCRs, grocery stores, gas stations, and paychecks of the present. It includes any of the practices, beliefs, and attitudes that a people hold – those that can be traced back centuries, like canoe construction and traditional navigation, as well as those adopted from abroad in recent years like ear studs, baggy pants, and tastes in rock music. If education is to embrace and respond to the culture, then it must take into account both the new and the old.

Certain elements of culture are symbolic of a people’s identity and history. Navigation and weaving, for instance, are especially representative of the atolls of the central Carolines. Likewise, ceremonies to honor chiefs, including the ritual of pounding and serving sakau, are distinctive of Pohnpei. Legends and oral history play an important part in the traditions of every island culture. Educators can incorporate some of these elements into the curriculum, provided they are taught in a way that allows for the development of thinking skills and other necessary tools. Otherwise, they remain curiosities that impede students from learning the skills needed to adjust to today’s world.

During my years as principal of Xavier High School, I was acutely conscious of the need to allow culture to permeate both curricular and non-curricular areas of school life. When we overhauled the social studies curriculum in the early 1970s, we wanted the material to reflect island concerns and to be taught so that it engaged island students. We asked students to interview their parents to obtain oral histories and other information about their communities. Yet, we insisted that students do more than simply acquire this information. They were expected to process the knowledge: to compare and contrast, analyze and evaluate it. In this way, they responded to the richness of their cultural background while developing the thinking skills that would serve them for a lifetime.

Nonetheless, culture cannot be taught in a classroom. Culture is acquired in the home and the community. The school’s responsibility lies in reinforcing culture by infusing it into every aspect of school life. Culture should inform every subject, every spoken word, every nuance. This happens in schools where Micronesian teachers draw on personal experiences to advance the education of their students.

The challenge for schools today is to weave culture into both curricula and policies, rather than reduce it to a single program or two. Elements of traditional culture such as oral history and language can be taught in ways that are harmonious with the other goals of education, including literacy and higher thinking skills. Education then builds on the past to lead students into the future.

Goal 3: Academic Skills
Those who champion academic skills maintain that the purpose of education is to develop the mind. They may agree that some attitudes and values can be absorbed along the way, but these are secondary to a school’s main mission: the development of students’ intellectual abilities. They argue that the point of education is to emphasize basic skills such as literacy, mathematics, and language. However, the point of education is to keep learning as much as possible, not simply to master these or other skills. Advocates of this goal value traditional disciplines such as science and social studies not only for the development of the mind, but also for how the information relates to the students’ physical and social environments. Courses in computer science and business are acceptable only to the extent that they contribute to these goals.

The history of education in Micronesia is marked by continuing tension between the “traditionalists” who hold this view of education and the “reformists” who believe that the school systems in Micronesia ought to adapt to the reality of life in the islands. Traditionalists – while recognizing the obvious cultural differences between the U.S. and the Pacific islands – maintain that Islanders deserve the same opportunities to develop their minds that the Americans, Japanese, or Australians enjoy. Anything else denies the more talented Islanders – the future leaders of island nations – the education needed to compete successfully with other nations in the global village of the future.

Reformists argue that what is appropriate for educationally-developed countries like the U.S. may not be best for the Pacific. A school program designed to promote academic skills produces an education for an elitist crop of graduates who will continue their education, one school after another. In the end, they are suitable only for white-collar work either in government or in private business. Critics believe that these graduates, who are unsuited for manual work in the trades or farming, will have serious problems adjusting to island life when they return. Some view them as de-cultured individuals, who under the spell of foreign thought and attitudes have turned their backs on their own cultures, lifestyles, and folkways.

Even more serious are the reformists’ claims that only the best and brightest survive this demanding system, leaving a number of casualties along the way. Those who are left behind, they argue, are destined to drop out before finishing school, becoming nothing more than debris on what is a pathway to success for a few talented persons. In the view of the reformists, all students are casualties: those who succeed and become cultural orphans, and those who are spewed out before finishing school.

How Elitist Are Our Schools?
The clash between adherents of this classical view of education and those upholding more island-friendly schools is genuine. Yet, facts suggest that the imagined outcome of our academic education system is not necessarily the real one. For nearly 30 years now, large numbers of young Micronesians have gone abroad for education in U.S. colleges. Despite the fears of a large brain drain and concern for cultural re-entry problems, the overwhelming majority of such students have returned to their islands and adapted successfully to town life in the Pacific. In 1982, 10 years after federal Pell grants opened the doors to U.S. colleges for thousands of Micronesians, there were only a few hundred citizens of FSM and RMI still living permanently in the U.S. Others returned home to re-adjust to island living and find whatever jobs were available (Hezel & Levin, 1990).

The dropout rate that critics of an academic-skills system fear is indeed high. Between 20% and 30% of all elementary students leave school before finishing eighth grade. The rate is even higher for high school students. In FSM and RMI, approximately 50% of all students leave school before high school graduation (see Table 2.18).

Impossibly high standards of education are not to blame for forcing students to leave school early. Those who remain in school fail to reach the U.S. norms in math and reading skills. In FSM and RMI, students are performing significantly below the standards set for these island nations. In RMI, for instance, test results from a five-year period in the late 1990s show that almost two-thirds of all students failed to meet national norms in math, English, and even the Marshallese language (see Tables 2.12 and 2.13). Students have not met FSM standards since national testing began in 1995 (see Tables 2.6 and 2.7). Even in Palau, where academic standards are higher, only 12% of all high school students can read at the U.S. 4th grade level (Palau Ministry of Education, personal communication, 2001).

Despite the poor test results and high dropout rate, increasing numbers of young Micronesians are leaving for distant destinations to find employment. Those who seek their fortunes abroad may not always be the best educated Micronesians. They include a large number of high school and elementary school dropouts. Therefore, educators in Micronesia today do not have the luxury of focusing just on those students with the most potential. They must also offer basic skills in English and math to young people who are likely to go anywhere and do anything.

Three Paths or One?
In the context of Micronesian societies today, it is possible to merge these three visions into a single set of goals that embraces all students, no matter their career choices or ethnic interests. What is needed is a new education system that leaves the 1970s and 1980s behind and responds to the realities of island societies today. As heirs to the global economy, our young people face far more complicated options than previous generations.

Can one mode of education fit all? It never has. Educators must adapt without sacrificing basic skills, which are the survival skills for our young people wherever they choose to live. While encouraging our students to reflect on who they are and where they come from, we must give them what they need to make their way into the future.

How Good Are Our Schools?

By Francis X. Hezel, S.J.

For more than 20 years now, since self-government began in the late 1970s, we have been running our own school systems. Isn’t it time that we stepped back, took a long look at the performance of our education system, and asked just how good our schools are?

Some may squirm a little at this question for fear that the answer might prove embarrassing. Yet regular evaluation is standard procedure for every organization. We assign our students grades and give them report cards periodically during the school year to measure their progress. Why shouldn’t we grade our schools on their performance in an effort to determine how the education system under our care is doing?

This may be an especially opportune time to take a long hard look at our school systems inasmuch as the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) are renegotiating U.S. assistance under the Compact of Free Association. The U.S. is urging the two nations to establish clear objectives and benchmarks for what they hope to accomplish in the next several years. Education reform, however, should not be motivated by a desire to satisfy our donor nations. It should be done out of concern for our own young people, whose futures will depend in great part on the quality of education they receive. We fail them and ourselves if we don’t give them the best education we can.

Even if we work up the courage to evaluate the performance of our schools, it’s not easy to get the information needed to do so. There is an absence of uniform test data that would permit us to make comparisons across national boundaries. The California Achievement Tests during the late 1960s and the Micronesian Achievement Test Series in the 1970s, both of which allowed regional comparisons, have been discontinued. Finding test data for comparison even within a state or nation can be challenging. The test scores used in this article, while they are the best data available, may be open to different interpretations, sometimes raising as many questions as they answer. Administrators are often reluctant to release test data on the grounds that it can be used for crassly political purposes, but perhaps underlying this is the fear that this information will reflect badly on their schools and discredit their own work.

The Public’s Need to Know
Educators seem to agree that education reforms will never be accomplished without the full support of the local communities. Since the centralization of education in the early 1960s, we have learned that even a strong and well-motivated education department is unable to accomplish education reform on its own. Unless the communities take ownership, there will never be substantial improvement in village schools. Yet, if we expect a community to assume responsibility for its school, people need feedback. They should know not only how their school has improved over recent years, but how it stands in relation to other schools in the area.

Based on complaints from parents and community members, communication between education administrators and the communities is still not what it should be. The communities say that they still don’t know how the schools are doing or what problems they face today. On the other hand, education administrators sometimes complain that the communities show little interest in attending meetings at which such matters are discussed. If local responsibility is ever to occur, education administrators will have to provide the communities with the information they need to gauge the success of their efforts.

Educators and the politicians who pay their salaries are sometimes nervous that unfavorable comparisons will be made between schools. I’ve heard this on more than one occasion while gathering data for this article. It would greatly help educational reform, however, if comparisons were made between local schools and between states or nations. Competition has always been a great motivating force in Micronesia. It has driven people to move mountains – literally, if you accept the theory that Nan Madol, with its huge basaltic rock walls, was constructed by Pohnpeians for fear not of their master’s lash but of being shamed by their rivals.

There are numerous examples of the constructive use of competition in all areas of life, including providing for funerals, church feasts, and village celebrations. Competition is a vital force in island life, and it can be a potent tool for education reform as well. At a recent education conference, I heard a man recount how his small island community was galvanized some years ago when, as the results of the high school entrance test were broadcast on the radio, they discovered that their school was ranked near the bottom of schools in Chuuk. The community met to decide what to do about the situation and agreed that for the next several months they would provide food to support the teachers so they could run a remedial program after school. There was no request for overtime pay, no request for supplementary funds. The community itself took the measures needed to improve the products of their school. But they probably never would have done it had they not been embarrassed so publicly.

We acknowledge the importance of prestige and village pride. We use this to goad communities to perform well in athletic contests. Why don’t we use the same motivation to get them to improve their schools?

The Marks of Success
How do we gauge school performance? One possibility is to assess the academic achievement of the young people the schools produce. The problem with this, however, is that an individual’s performance on standardized tests may reflect the student’s personal ability more than anything that the school did for the student. Xavier High School, for instance, is known to have its pick of some of the brightest youth throughout the entire region. Would high test marks at the end of four years of Xavier reflect the caliber of its student body more than the performance of the school?

Private schools often appeal to brighter students from families that set a high value on education. For this reason, the balance is already tipped toward private schools in any measure of student performance. In public schools, however, we may presume that such disparities will be minimal. There may be some bias in favor of an urban population, since students living in town are more likely to come from families on wage employment who set a higher value on education, are in a better position to assist with homework, and are more likely to have amenities such as electric power and privacy in the home. Yet, these factors, as important as they may be, do not seem decisive in determining the quality of a school, since many of the best schools in each state are in rural areas.

There are other norms besides test scores that could be used to determine the caliber of a school. For example, in our research we found that certain indicators seemed to correlate well with the quality of the school. These include low teacher absenteeism and the cleanliness of the school campus, although not necessarily the state of repair of the school buildings themselves. This suggests a high degree of community involvement and a sense of ownership of the school. Schools that had a reputation for quality also seemed to have low dropout rates. It was as if parents knew that their children were part of a worthwhile effort that would prove beneficial in the future.

FSM Elementary Schools
Education in FSM varies among its four states. Per-pupil expenditures are listed in Table 2.1 as just one example of this variation.

Source: Human Resource Development in Micronesia, by the Asian Development Bank, 1996, p. 245.

Chuuk. Chuuk administers a test to all 8th graders to determine who will be admitted to junior high school. The results of this test for the last six years (in this case, 1995-2000) are used by the department of education to rank elementary schools in the state. The top five public schools (see Table 2.2) include two from Faichuk, an area in the western part of the lagoon that has long been regarded as one of the poorest in the state. Mechetiw, the top-scoring school, is a village school on Weno that opened only about 10 years ago. Moch, the third-ranked school, has been recognized for several years as one of the leading schools in the state.

The four private elementary schools in Chuuk, with mean scores ranging between 64% and 75%, are among the top 10 schools during this period. The highest ranking of them, St. Cecilia’s School (75%), is still surpassed by three public elementary schools.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the Chuuk State Education Department, compiled by the author.

Kosrae. Although for years Kosrae has had a policy of open admission to high school, the state began testing 8th graders in 1997. The results of this high school entrance test for 1999 and 2000 were used to gauge the performance of public elementary schools on the island. The average scores in English and math for Kosrae’s six elementary schools are given in Table 2.3. Of special interest here is the relatively small gap between the schools on the list, indicating that Kosrae’s elementary schools are all at approximately the same performance level, at least as measured by this test.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the Kosrae State Education Department, compiled by the author.

Pohnpei. The state of Pohnpei has amassed good data on the average pass rates on the public high school entrance test for each elementary school over the past 13 years. Table 2.4 presents information about the five top-scoring public schools in the state. Seinwar Elementary School, generally regarded as the strongest public school in the state, has had a 70% pass record for its 8th graders throughout the years. Rohnkiti, now known as Nanpei Elementary School, has the second highest rate over this period. Ohmine and Net, two other schools with very high reputations, are also among the top five schools in pass rates. Mokil is the only outer island school with a pass rate higher than 40%.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the Pohnpei State Education Department, compiled by the author.

The six schools at the very bottom of the list of Pohnpei’s 31 public elementary schools showed pass rates of less than 20% over the past 13 years. Three of these schools are from Sokehs Municipality, two are from Madolenihmw, and the one at the very bottom is an outer island school with a pass rate of only 12%.

There are other schools that are showing improvement in their test scores. Awak and Sokehs Powe, for example, which have had occasional bursts of glory, appear to be making steady progress in recent years. Wone School is another that is beginning to make real strides toward quality education.

The private elementary schools on Pohnpei – Seventh Day Adventist Academy, Pohnpei Catholic School, and Calvary Christian Academy – outscored even the highest of the public schools with an average pass rate of 74%. This is 2 1/2 times higher than the 28% average pass rate of all Pohnpei public schools.

Yap. In Yap, the exit tests taken by all 8th graders in 1998, 1999, and 2000 show some clear patterns among the state’s elementary schools. These tests include math, reading in English, and writing. Perhaps the most notable finding is that the Outer Island elementary schools generally score well below the schools on Yap Proper. Outer Island schools average nearly 10 percentage points less than public schools on Yap Proper, as Table 2.5 indicates. The two private schools in Yap – St. Mary’s School and the Seventh Day Adventist Academy – have an average score that is not much higher than some of the state’s best public elementary schools. Yap is distinctive in being the only state in which public schools are not thoroughly outclassed by private schools.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the Yap State Education Department, compiled by the author.

On Yap Proper there seem to be fewer standout schools, either at the top or at the bottom, than in other places. Of the 11 schools on Yap Proper, 9 attained an average score of above 70%; another was close, but the other was significantly lower. A number of schools were bunched together at the top: Fanif with an average score of 80%; Gagil, Gilman, and Tamilang with scores of 79%; Rumung with a score of 78%; Delipebinaw with a score of 77%; and Maap with a score of 76%. Seventh Day Adventist Academy topped the list with an average of 83%, followed closely by St. Mary’s with 81%.

The best of the Outer Island schools were Mogmog (78%) and Falalop (74%) in Ulithi, with Fais (71%) and Fasserai (71%) close behind. Most of the other schools averaged 60-70%, but a few of the smaller ones showed averages well below these.

Rating the States in FSM
High school entrance tests give us some idea of how elementary schools within each state rank against one another but offer no basis for comparing the states educationally. For this we must turn to the results of the National Standardized Tests (NSTs) that have been administered in FSM since 1995. The test is given uniformly to 6th, 8th, and 10th grade students from select schools in each state. In all, more than 650 students in grade 6 and nearly as many in grade 8 are tested. The elementary schools chosen for the test are, with one exception, all public schools; there are no Outer Island schools among them. At the grade 10 level about 250 students are tested, with all public high schools represented in the testing, including the newly-opened Neighboring Islands Middle School on Woleai in Yap. The NST tests students in language arts and in mathematics. The weighted scores, as shown in Table 2.6, not only give some sense of the progress made by students from one grade level to another, but also offer us a glimpse of how states measure against one another.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the FSM Office of Education, compiled by the author.
*Results based on the 1995 test only.

In the language arts test results, Kosrae students scored consistently higher than students from other states. Pohnpei scored higher than Yap, but the only significantly higher score was registered in the 8th grade. Chuuk’s scores were the lowest, trailing Kosrae’s by about 20 percentage points and Yap by 10-15 percentage points. All states showed an increase in scores from lower grades to higher grades.

The scores on the math exam are less clear-cut than those on the language exam. Pohnpei and Kosrae appear to be neck-and-neck for the highest score (see Table 2.7). Yap students scored between 5-10 percentage points lower than the top two, while Chuuk students scored another 5-10 percentage points lower than Yap. Surprisingly, scores everywhere drop sharply in 10th grade, as if students peak in math in the 8th grade, at the end of elementary school.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the FSM Office of Education, compiled by the author.
*Results based on 1995 test only.

FSM High Schools
How are the high schools in FSM performing? As is the case with the elementary schools, there is no test data to show the success rates of individual high schools as measured against state or national standards. For a general picture of how the graduates of these schools compare with one another on a single test, we may consult the results of the yearly entrance test administered by the College of Micronesia-FSM (COM-FSM). Although high school seniors are not obliged to take this test, nearly all do in three of the four states: Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Yap. Only in Chuuk is there a significant difference between the number of graduates and the number of test takers. There, according to the numbers of Chuuk High School students and the numbers of those students who take the COM-FSM entrance test, only 25-30% of public high school 12th graders take the test.

Table 2.8 shows the percentage of 12th graders passing the COM-FSM entrance test each year between 1994 and 2000. The average pass rate of the school over the seven-year period is listed in the last column. During the last two or three years, pass rates rose significantly, suggesting either that there had been considerable improvement in recent graduating classes or that the test was adjusted downward to meet the achievement level of the student population.

Three of the public high schools show an average pass rate of 40-50%: Pohnpei Islands Central School (formerly PICS, recently renamed Bailey Olter High School or BOHS) leads with 50%, followed by Kosrae High School with 46%, and Yap High School with 41%. Outer Islands High School (OIHS) in Ulithi, Yap State, scored significantly lower with an average pass rate of 28%. Standing alone at the bottom of the list is Chuuk High School, with an average of only 5% passing the test over the last seven years.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the FSM Office of Education, compiled by the author.

The ratings of the FSM public high schools closely mirror the results of the FSM NST. There appears to be very little difference in the educational standards for elementary and high schools among Yap, Pohnpei, and Kosrae. Chuuk, however, scores lower than the other three states at the elementary level and significantly lower at the high school level.

Chuuk’s low standing is more a matter of poor school performance than lack of inherent ability in its students, as indicated by a look at the pass rates of private schools. Saramen Chuuk, a Catholic high school that opened just 10 years ago, had an average pass rate of 62%, well above that of any public high school in FSM. Xavier High School scored even higher (85%), but the school draws its student body from the whole of Micronesia, not just Chuuk. Three other private high schools in Chuuk – Berea Christian School, Seventh Day Adventist Academy, and Mizpah – showed pass rates of 22-31%. Although well below Yap High School, Kosrae High School, and PICS/BOHS, the pass rates for these three private schools were much higher than for Chuuk High School.

Let us add here a word on how private high schools, which until very recently were found only in Chuuk and Pohnpei, fare in these COM-FSM entrance tests. As shown in Table 2.9, the four private schools on Pohnpei, which improved consistently through this seven-year period, recorded an average pass rate of 61%. The six private high schools in Chuuk had an average pass rate of 49%. In both states, private schools showed a pass rate well above the state average.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the FSM Office of Education, compiled by the author.

Even when private schools’ results are added to public school performance on the COM-FSM entrance test, the difference between states is still striking. Table 2.10 illustrates how the states’ public and private high schools combined compare in terms of pass rates on the test. Pohnpei has the highest average pass rate (52%), followed by Kosrae (46%) and Yap (35%). At 24%, Chuuk’s average pass rate is about half that of Pohnpei and Kosrae.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the FSM Office of Education, compiled by the author.

RMI Elementary Schools
Two tests that can help measure performance of elementary schools are given to 8th graders each year in RMI. There is a high school entrance test, as in FSM, for which cumulative results are available for the years 1993-1999. In addition, the Pacific Islands Literacy Level Skills (PILLS) test is given each year to determine the number of at-risk students in three subject areas: English, Marshallese, and mathematics. Though the test is designed to identify students who have failed to achieve the minimal standards in these areas, Table 2.11 shows test percentages from the best elementary schools in RMI. The gap between these schools and those at the bottom of the list is great. Over 30 schools in RMI had an average pass rate of less than 20% on the high school entrance test, with 11 schools showing an average of less than 10%. The best schools by both standards (entrance test and PILLS test) are the two schools on Likiep. Wotje and Mejit are the next best according to both criteria. The others listed in Table 2.11 have the next highest entrance-test pass rates, although some have poor average scores on the PILLS test.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the RMI Ministry of Education, compiled by the author.

As in FSM, private schools in RMI are far outperforming public schools. The percentage of private school students passing the entrance test is 20 percentage points higher than public schools, and the pass rate for private school students on the PILLS test is nearly double that of public school students, as shown in Table 2.12.

Source: Unpublished statistics from the RMI Ministry of Education, compiled by the author.

A breakdown of the PILLS test results over the recent five-year period yields some startling results. That private schools outscore public schools in math and English is perhaps not surprising to most people. But the results of the PILLS test also show that the private schools, despite their relatively large expatriate enrollment and their emphasis on English, are doing better in the Marshallese language than the public schools (see Table 2.13). The gap between the public and private schools in Marshallese is not as wide as it is in English and math, but it is significant. Only 21% of the public school students in RMI have