Hawaii’s education officials are wringing their hands, while scrambling to explain why public school student scores remained stagnant on the Hawaii State Assessment. If the scores accurately measure “grade level proficiency,” then only about one-fourth of all children can do math and less than half can read at grade level.

Public comments by Board of Education members Karen Knudsen, Mary Cochran and Herbert Watanabe were identical to those uttered last year, blaming Hawaii’s school failure on the federal government and No Child Left Behind. Superintendent Pat Hamamoto dismissed the Hawaii State Assessment – created by her own subordinates – as an inadequate way to measure student progress.

So why are taxpayers spending $7 million a year on a test that doesn’t efficiently measure what students are learning? Earlier this year, the DOE invited Achieve, Inc. to analyze Hawaii’s assessment. The company’s education experts confirmed that the 10th grade math and reading tests are actually measuring what children should already know by 7th to 9th grade. In other words, the Hawaii State Assessment is not too hard. Achieve’s recommendation at a joint House and Senate informational briefing was to “align a relevant, challenging curriculum to a test that provides a common measure.” So why did the 2006 Legislature shoot down Senate Bill 3059 mandating a common, core curriculum?

Common sense tells us that a student cannot do well on Geometry questions on the 10th grade assessment if they have not yet taken Geometry. My daughter, a Mililani High School graduate, suffered that fate, because no Geometry classes were available until her junior year in High School, but only as an online course, because classes were full.

A Kealakehe High School student explains that she just learned grammar last year, as a sophomore. (Until now, I foolishly thought that parts of speech, syntax and so on were taught in “grammar school.”)

Therefore, considering that public school instruction in core subjects is erratic in Hawaii, the only two ways to improve results on the state assessment are:

• 1. Lower the cut scores, so that students will be considered proficient by answering less questions correctly (i.e. “cheat”); or
• 2. Require a common, core curriculum to be taught in Hawaii’s schools and align the test with that curriculum.

The answer is that simple. It’s unfortunate for students that Hawaii’s public officials are such slow learners.

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