Educators believed that Hawaiian Creole English use was associated with low academic achievement, low socioeconomic status and a negative community stereotype. Hawaiian students were to be encouraged to become primarily fluent in Standard English. This belief was that fluency and subsequent improvement in academic achievement would allow students greater opportunities in education and in life. Teachers were to encourage the speaking of SE in the classroom and model such speaking for their students. Because no provisions were made to support teachers and their students, the board's action essentially maintained the status quo. Critics of this policy stated the banning of HCE was a blow to Hawaiian cultural identity, even though the ban did not encompass the use of classic Hawaiian but rather the pidgin dialect.

Strong support from parents, teachers, native Hawaiians and community activities as well as a maelstrom of media coverage resulted in the Board of Education rewriting the policy to simply encourage the use of Standard English within the school setting rather than banning the use of pidgin Creole dialect outright.

While studies have not been done to review the in-depth reactions of communities in Hawaii to the limitation on the use of HCE in the school setting, Sato (1988) proposed that negative stereotypes surrounding the use of Hawaiian Creole are still widespread within the Hawaiian community. Most Hawaiians are not native to the island, and a desire for assimilation is strong within the older populations of Hawaii, especially second generation Japanese immigrants. It should also be noted that the Hawaiians who argued strongly against the "English only" ruling by the Department of Education never denied that it was also important that...

This allows divergence from the belief that Hawaiian Creole is "bad" and Standard English is "good." It is likely that one who would speak to a Hawaiian from outside the islands would find Standard English to appear as a superior form of communications than Hawaiian Creole English. Within Hawaiian society it is reasonable to believe that Standard English is not superior to Hawaiian, but rather more logical, easier to understand by those outside of the community and a more effective for of communication in terms of intelligibility. The argument for the use of Standard English, therefore, is not based upon an element of right or wrong but rather which language allows the student to function most effectively within society. Within Standard English there exists an element of standardization not seen within the Hawaiian dialect, which in turn allows the Hawaiian student to move easily through greater levels of society.
The Hawaiian Creole language is an unstable form, with a mixed syntax and a lack of grammatical structure. Hawaiian Creole language will always have a place in the Hawaiian society, but it is reasonable to believe that American students should be primarily educated in Standard English. This will allow the students to assimilate outside of the Hawaiian culture should they so choose, while still allowing them contact with the lexicon of their homeland.