I am not against private schools, but I am for public schools.

My wife, JoAnn and I decided early on that our children would attend public schools. We are totally aligned in our belief that public schools are the backbone of our society and that without good schools, our society, culture and economy would suffer.

We were concerned that in Honolulu, we saw too many families believing that unless they sent their children to private schools, their children would be one or more of the following: physically hurt, academically impaired or left out of the Honolulu private-school network for the rest of their lives.

And in order to pay for the tuition, many of these families take on second or third jobs, giving up family time, enrichment opportunities such as music lessons, family vacations — all of which could be as or more important than the school attended in the development of the whole child.

We didn't have those concerns about public schools, being proud products of Honolulu's finest schools: Farrington and Roosevelt. We chose the public school path for our children and encouraged the parents of our children's friends to do the same. We wanted to keep the peer groups intact through the critical middle school years.

Both our children, Emily and Robb, attended Nu'uanu Elementary, Kawananakoa Middle and Roosevelt High schools. Having said that, I'm sure that you're all wondering how that worked out for us.

They both swam and played water polo in high school. Robb also played varsity baseball and went to states in both swimming and baseball.

I'm happy to report that Emily is graduating from Northwestern University this June and will be headed for law school in the fall. Robb is doing well as a sophomore at the University of San Francisco. We are proud of both for their accomplishments and for being pretty neat people.

Educators tell us that we should not judge our schools on test scores alone. I agree. However, we have to be practical and acknowledge that metrics do matter and the public will judge schools by test results. Unfortunately, as a statewide system, we hear a lot about our "failing" schools.

But did you know that on the island of O'ahu, most of our complexes exceed national averages on the Stanford Achievement Test? These schools and their feeder elementary and middle schools meet or beat the national averages in both reading and math: Kaiser, Kaimuki, Kalani, Roosevelt, 'Aiea, Moanalua, Radford, Mililani, Waialua, Kapolei, Pearl City, Castle, Kahuku and Kalaheo. And, if more of our high testing students remained in public schools in Honolulu, those numbers would be even better.

It's on the neighbor islands and in certain areas of Honolulu that we see only four complexes out of 20 that meet or exceed the national average.

We have a statewide school system, but greatly varying results. What's the difference?

Some of it is attributable to the challenges faced by immigrant families. Not only are those children learning English as a second language, but many of their parents struggle with two and three jobs to make ends meet. Overall I believe it's the level and type of parental involvement and the level of the commitment to education in each community that matters.

What can be done from a parent's perspective? First, fix our schools and make them all shine. Second, I believe that we need to develop parents to be educational coaches and role models.

Clearly, more needs to be done. I ask all of you to join me in actively supporting our public schools.

Alan M. Oshima is senior vice president and general counsel for Hawaiian Telcom. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.