I agree with Amos that offshore drilling in the Arctic, or off the East and Gulf coasts, won't fix the problem- estimates are pie in the sky figures, and even if there is a fair amount, it will be ten years before its effect becomes a factor. This has been gone over in several threads. McCain is misinformed, and needs to study up on resource industries as a whole.
I hold no brief for either candidate, both grasp at whatever will give the public hope.
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Hawaiians know a great deal about their private schools, and the fight to get into the best- contacts- their ohana- are invaluable in their future lives. In National assessments, many students in public schools are below national averages. Overall, only 21% of 8th graders are considered proficient in math and 20% in reading. National Assessment of Education Progress.

When a claim looks wrong- and Obama's does- questions arise and the gossip flows, the claims are examined and resentment that their kids didn't get a 'scholarship' to Punahou or Iolani re-surfaces. And in Oahu, everyone knows about everyone else. A recent item in the Advertiser aired a complaint by the man who was captain of the Punahou basketball team of which Obama was a second-stringer, upset that Obama was talking about facing discrimination at the school. He said that of the starting five, 3 were part Hawaiian or Hawaiian-Chinese, and one was a Filipino, he was the only white on the squad.
Although Blacks are only 2% of the population, only 30% claim that they are white, most being Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian or Rainbow as they call themselves.

The best most parents there can do is pay the much smaller fees at the Kamehameha schools, which afford advantages because they are the largest landholder in Hawaii, have an endowment in the neighborhood of $8-10 Billion, and state of the art campuses- but enrollment is limited and places are fought for (3500 places, kindergarten-grade 12 at their 160 acre campus in Honolulu, but there are other schools in their system, on Hawai'i and Maui, and they have arrangements that provide off-campus resources to some 20,000 students).

For current information on public schools in Hawaii,
see www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/May-2008/Grading-the-Public-Schools508/