Before we get into the battery of test scores let’s look at few other statistics:

• There are about 6000 children that will drop out of school in Hawaii in 2013 – the lifetime lost income of these children is estimated to be over $1.5 billion.
• Hawaii would save over $93 million in healthcare costs is those dropouts actually earned their diploma
• If Hawaii’s high school graduates all graduated “college ready” the state would save $14mm a year in remediation costs
• An increase of only 5% of the male population graduating from high school would save $18 million in crime-related costs.
• 42% of Hawaii’s 8^th graders are eligible for free or reduced school lunch
• There are over 1700 homeless children in Hawaii’s public school system.
• 11 out of 41 Hawaii public high schools have been labeled “Dropout Factories” by the Center for Social Organization of Schools – Johns Hopkins. That’s 27% of Hawaii’s high schools – We think that qualifies as a crisis.

This information is provided by the Alliance for Excellent Education which has a great link: http://www.all4ed.org/

Now let’s dive into the testing data, which, by the way, we think is important but by no means the be all and end all of assessing our students’ progress toward educational success:

Hawaii State Assessment (HSA)

The good and bad news about HSA:

The HSA is Hawaii’s own customized way of measuring AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) of public school children toward the goals set in the Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA), more commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

		Reading		Mathematics
2003		39%		19%
2004		45%		23%
2005		47%		24%
2006		47%		27%
			TEST CHANGED
2007		60%		39%
2008		62%		43%
2009		65%		45%
2010		67%		49%
2011		67%		55%

The data show the percentage of students making AYP toward meeting NCLB benchmarks. So in 2003, only 19% of students were making AYP in Math and 39% in Reading. These are truly horrible numbers – but should not be taken entirely at face value.

NCLB allows each state to establish its own standards and assessments to determine AYP. This has led to a great discrepancy in terms of the quality and “rigor” of learning occurring for students in different states. Many states are effectively “cheating” by “dumbing down” standards and/or setting low benchmarks for what constitutes “proficiency” on their assessments – allowing them to declare that a very high percentage of their public school students are making AYP when, in fact, they are positioning themselves for success but their students for failure. If one were to look at the top performing states many of these fall into that category. Set a low bar and then have everyone step over it.

Hawaii is thankfully at the other end of the national spectrum. Hawaii has some of the most robust academic standards in the country. This is a good thing – because it encourages our teachers and children to aim higher and hopefully graduate “smarter.” The downside is, of course, that if you set a very high bar relative to everyone else it always looks as though you are failing. This has led to one of the most confusing aspects of Hawaii’s public school data – the fact that while some people say that “Hawaii’s public schools rank is 42nd out of 50 US states” others point to the fact that national numbers place Hawaii firmly in the “middle of the pack.”

As you might have guessed, BOTH of these statements have some truth to them. Hawaii scores very low relative to other states on NCLB – but some of this has to do with the fact that Hawaii’s standards are more rigorous than most other states.  What’s more, our Board of Education recently approved Policy #4540 which has raised the expectations and requirements for graduation from Hawaii’s public schools.

Hawaii, along with most other states, has joined a collaborative effort to devise common core standards and assessments. The existence of these shared standards will eliminate much of the current confusion surrounding states’ AYP rankings. Reassuringly, Hawaii’s standards are seen by some to be one of the better models for what the future national standards may look end up looking like.

For more on the HSA results see the link:  http://doe.k12.hi.us/reports/suptsannualreport/index.htm

To get a clearer picture of where Hawaii ranks relative to other states we need to look at national (or nationally normalized) tests. The SAT is probably the best known. Here’s what the picture looks like:

Hawaii College Board Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT):

The College Board Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is taken voluntarily by high school juniors and seniors to support their applications for admission to college. This should not be confused with the Stanford Achievement Test, also abbreviated “SAT”, which is a commercially prepared test administered annually to students in grades 3, 6, 8, and 10 which serves as the State’s primary statewide indicator of student academic performance. The latter SAT norms purport to represent the achievement of students in a nationally representative sample of schools.

Looking at Hawaii’s SAT scores over the past decade show no statistically significant improvement. The fact that the national SAT test results do not mirror the improvements shown on our own HSA tests (which are NOT nationally normalized) is clearly disappointing.

Year	Hawaii averages			U.S. averages
	Math	Reading 1/	Writing	Math	Reading 1/	Writing
20022003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011	520516 514 516 509 506 502 502 505 500	488486 487 490 482 484 481 479 483 479	(NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)472 473 470 469 470 469	516519 518 520 518 515 515 515 516 514	504507 508 508 503 502 502 501 501 497	(NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)497 494 494 493 492 489

 

It should however be remembered that the SAT as a measure of future academic or career success is being increasingly called into question. It is well known, for example, that economically disadvantaged students tend to consistently score lower than non-disadvantaged students of similar intelligence and preparedness.

See link for more information:

http://www.collegeboard.com/testing

NAEP – National Assessment of Educational Progress

Yet another (and many feel more balanced) measurement of how Hawaii is faring relative to the other states is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

As the NAEP website puts it:

“The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history.

Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across the nation, NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts. The assessment stays essentially the same from year to year, with only carefully documented changes. This permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time”.

NAEP administered assessments in all 50 states and two jurisdictions (District of Columbia and Department of Defense schools) between January and March 2011 to a nationally representative sample of 422,000 fourth- and 343,000 eighth-grade students. In Hawaii, about 9,000 grade 8 and 6,000 grade 4 students participated in the spring 2011 assessment.

NAEP achievement levels are set by the National Assessment Governing Board. In regards to levels of rigor, NAEP achievement levels can be considered aspirational. “Basic” indicates partial mastery of prerequisite grade-level knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade, “Proficient” represents competency over complex subject matter and may go beyond the grade level tested, and “Advanced” stands for superior performance.

NAEP is a congressionally mandated project of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Hawaii NAEP Scores National Testing

Obviously the NAEP scores show some modest improvement over the past decade – and most people view the NAEP as a “better” test of college and work readiness. Hawaii’s rankings in comparison to the nation are:

• Grade 4 mathematics: 4th highest gains in the nation.
• Grade 8 mathematics: 5th highest gains in the nation.
• Grade 4 reading: 14th in the nation in gains
• Grade 8 reading: 4th highest gains in the nation.

Some of the good news is that in 2011 Hawaii was the ONLY state to make significant gains in both mathematic and reading and in both of the grade levels tested!

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For more information on the NAEP please see the following excellent link:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

Achieve

Achieve is a bipartisan group based in Washington DC established by governors and corporate leaders to help raise national educational standards and help raise college readiness.

Achieve Conclusions:

Reading

“Hawaii’s reading test puts a premium on comprehension of informational text, which is exactly what colleges and employers say is essential for success in college-level courses across the curriculum and in the workplace.

The passages on the Hawaii reading test tend to be less challenging than the reading passages on most of the other tests we analyzed, making the Hawaii test among the least rigorous. Hawaii’s reading test overall is among the least rigorous of the tests we analyzed, mainly because the reading passages on the test are of relatively low cognitive complexity, generally representative of upper middle school and early high school level reading. Moreover, while Hawaii’s test questions are more cognitively demanding on average than those in most other states, the questions fall short in not requiring students to analyze text beyond a superficial level, a skill critical for success in college and today’s work environment.”

Math

“Hawaii’s test in mathematics is well balanced and contains rigorous content. The test gives more emphasis to geometry, algebra and data items than to number items, as is appropriate for a grade 10 test.

Hawaii’s “Meets Proficiency” score in mathematics requires students to know slightly more challenging content than students who scored at the passing level on the other tests Achieve analyzed. While the content demand on the Hawaii assessment in mathematics is higher than those in other states, the test items themselves are less cognitively demanding on average than those of the six other states in the study, particularly for items assessing number and geometry content. Thus, the test as a whole does not present unreasonable expectations. In fact, from an international perspective, to pass the mathematics test, Hawaii students need to successfully answer questions that, on average, cover material students in most other countries study by grade 8.”

Conclusions and Recommendations

“Raise the overall rigor of the grade 10 reading test. Hawaii should increase the complexity of the reading passages on its assessment. Some passages on the reading test should represent the level of demand typical of instructional materials written for a late high school reading level to raise the ceiling on the test and signal the level of text students need to comprehend to be on track for attainment in postsecondary education and the new economy. In addition, Hawaii should add items that measure the highest level of cognitive demand, requiring students to more deeply analyze text.

§ Phase in higher cut scores on the reading test over time. In addition to increasing the cognitive demand of its passages and/or items, Hawaii can raise the rigor of its reading test over time by raising the score required for passing. Texas is using this approach with its new graduation exam. This strategy only works if a test has enough range in what it measures, so that a higher score actually reflects more advanced knowledge and skills. If a higher cut score simply means that students must answer more of the same kinds of items correctly, rather than items tapping more advanced concepts and skills, it is not very meaningful to raise the cut score.

§ Raise the level of performance demand of the mathematics items. Although the content on the math test is challenging, the items themselves tend to make low-level demands in terms of performance. Hawaii should raise the cognitive demand of its items over time by increasing the proportion of items that require complex problem-solving skills, problem formulation and advanced reasoning.”

For the full report (and it is worth reading) see below:

http://www.achieve.org/files/HI-exitexam.pdf

So what does it all mean?

Looking at the testing data in aggregate it is difficult to escape a conclusion that although there have been modest gains on various national tests, Hawaii’s public school system is still clearly failing to make the sort of improvements necessary to ensure that ALL of our public school graduates will be able to contribute to and participate in the 21^st century economy.

While there have been some spectacular and heroic individual success stories at the school level, there have also been some dismal failures. On average, our schools are not rigorous enough (according to the Achieve report.) While our 4^th graders are about average compared to the rest of the country, by the time they get to 8^th grade they have dropped behind. Most alarming is surly the fact that Hawaii has 11 Dropout Factories (out of 41 high schools.)

As a state, Hawaii ranks near the top of the nation in terms of average IQ. Surely with commitment, effort and honesty we can ultimately transform our schools into something better.

And for those who actually think that “average” is good enough:

Keep in mind that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) places the United States at 18^th out of 36 industrialized nations in terms of secondary graduation rates. Ninety-three percent of all South Korean children received a high school diploma last year compared to 75% in the US. The US public school graduation rate is closer to 60%.

There are a lot of resources out there. If you want to know more about public schools to see how the Hawaii DoE links to their schools, please see resources below:

For Statewide information see the following:

Data Quality Campaign report on Hawaii: http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org
Alliance for Excellent Education report on Hawaii:
http://www.all4ed.org/about_the_crisis/schools/map
http://www.all4ed.org/about_the_crisis/schools/state_information/Hawaii

American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research Report on Hawaii [Download PDF]
http://www.aei.org/article/100606

Hawaii Educational Policy Center Report to the Legislature on Senate Concurrent Resolution 118 SD1 HD1 Improving the Community’s Understanding of the Department of Education’s Programs and School Expenses Including a Comparison with Other States on Adequacy of Funds, December 31, 2008 [Download PDF]

Want to know how your school is doing? Try the following great links from the Hawaii DOE:

http://doe.k12.hi.us/myschool/index.htm

http://doe.k12.hi.us/myschool/map.htm

Want to know how your school is preparing students for College and Career Readiness?

The College and Career Readiness Indicators Report (CCRI) has been developed through Hawaii P-20 in partnership with the Hawai‘i Department of Education (DOE) and the University of Hawai‘i (UH). This report presents information on how well Hawaii’s graduates are prepared to meet the DOE’s Vision of a High School Graduate. For the Class of 2008, a report was produced by the Hawaii DOE, the University of Hawaii in collaboration with Hawaii P-20 and Kamehameha Schools. Reports for 2008 are listed by Complex Area in the following link: http://www.p20hawaii.org/indicators_report.html

Here are more links on Hawaii Schools:

Hawaii DoE School Reports: http://doe.k12.hi.us/reports/index.htm
Hawaii School Guide: http://www.hawaiischoolguide.com
GreatSchools: http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/go/HI