The Hawaii state Department of Education failed its federal assessment.

That is the word from the U.S. Department of Education, which notified Hawaii’s Superintendent Pat Hamamoto in a March 24, 2006 letter that, based on documents submitted by the DOE for review by peer reviewers and U.S. DOE staff, Hawaii’s 2005-2006 assessment system was not approved and does not meet the requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

The Act requires States to adopt challenging academic content and achievement standards in mathematics, reading/language arts and science and to develop assessments that meet the requirements in the required grade levels.

As a result, the U.S. DOE may take any or all of the following steps:

• Enter into a compliance agreement with the State;

• Withhold millions of dollars in Title 1, Part A State administrative funding (Hawaii currently receives approx. $46 million per year in Title 1, Part A funding – fines could be as high as that entire amount);

• Place the State into mandatory oversight status through a federal consent decree.

Planning and Evaluation Director Robert McClelland says the U.S. DOE will provide a report of their findings from the on-site visit by June 2006.

Twenty-five other states received Elementary and Secondary Education Act determination letters between 2005 and 2006 with most states fully or partially meeting requirements.

Only Hawaii did not receive any written recommendations for improvement.

Instead, a U.S. DOE peer review team performed an in-depth, on-site audit last month to examine all Title 1 programs. Preliminary findings were provided to DOE officials last week.

Hawaii State Board of Education Member Paul Vierling initially discovered the Elementary and Secondary Education Act letter to the Superintendent.

He says he was upset that the important document had been withheld from board members. Only Board Chair Randall Yee obtained a copy and he chose not to share it with the rest of the board members even though the report on Hawaii is published on the U.S. DOE Web site.

Vierling says the DOE’s failure to obtain approval of its assessment system is extremely serious and has asked the Board to place the item on the agenda for public discussion.

Despite the fact that this DOE failure will have long term consequences for the state, the taxpayers, the students and the entire DOE system, his request for further discussion on the matter has been denied by the board chair.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed into law in 1965 – 41 years ago – as a mechanism to get more funding for disadvantaged students to state education systems.

The 1994 reauthorization of the act added accountability and assessment provisions, requiring full compliance by states by 2001.

Hawaii failed to meet the 2001 deadline and was granted a 2-year extension, with a final deadline of December 12, 2003.

Now, nearly 2 1/2 years later, the DOE is still struggling to implement an assessment system that aligns content standards with a technically accurate state assessment and an alternate assessment designed for students with disabilities and limited English proficiency.

The Hawaii Content and Performance Standards statewide assessment is currently in its third revision (HCPS III).

State Superintendent Pat Hamamoto already is attempting to head off any negative publicity that might arise from the poor evaluation, taking an immediate, pre-emptive public relations approach, hitting the local airwaves to assure the listening audience that the DOE is still on target for meeting its goals for student achievement under No Child Left Behind.

Critics of the state public school system, however, say “Trust us” and “Give us more time to improve the system” has been the mantra of the DOE for decades, with no improvement.

The Hawaii DOE and BOE will not be able to avoid discussion of these problems for long.

The U.S. DOE determined that it is unlikely that Hawaii’s DOE will be in compliance until Spring 2007 at the earliest. The full report is expected in June along with the penalty that will be imposed on Hawaii.

References:

http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/nclbfinalassess/hi.html

http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs//data/2004/upl-meta-crs-7369/RL31407_2004Apr06.pdf?PHPSESSID=6e7dd7a4b06be7de3c574552bd51af39

http://www.cpre.org/Publications/hi.pdf

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02393.pdf

Laura Brown is the education reporter and researcher for HawaiiReporter.com and the education policy analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. She can be reached via email at mailto:laurabrown@hawaii.rr.com