The test is just too difficult – that is the excuse made by everyone from the state Department of Education to Gov. Linda Lingle to the media, who explain Hawaii’s low student achievement scores on the Hawaii State Assessment.

Now, an analysis by Achieve, Inc. of the rigor of the test shows just the opposite to be true. Achieve’s President Matthew Gandal at a joint House and Senate informational briefing last Thursday says the level of complexity of the Hawaii test is even less demanding than other states.

In fact, Gandal told Hawaii State Lawmakers on these two committees that in order to turn out high school graduates who are college and work-ready, the bar will have to be raised even higher.

The company’s education experts noted as an example that the 10th grade math and reading tests are actually measuring what children should already know by 7th to 9th grade.

Hawaii state Department of Education administrators took the lead in inviting Achieve Inc. to analyze Hawaii’s standards, following the National Association of Governor’s 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools where Microsoft’s Bill Gates called for the improvement of America’s public high schools.

Achieve, Inc., a bipartisan, nonprofit organization, was subsequently formed to help public education systems raise academic standards and improve assessments in order to prepare students for college and work.

To date, 22 states -- representing nearly half of all U.S. public school students -- have joined the American Diploma Project Network. This coalition of state superintendents, business leaders, college administrators and governors work together to form action plans to raise expectations, improve the skills of high school graduates and ensure that a high school diploma is meaningful.

The test can be improved, he says. Gandal offered many pragmatic solutions to improve Hawaii’s assessment, including:

• Shorten the test.

• Reduce the number of open-ended questions where students have to show all of their work.

• Perform diagnostic tests throughout the year.

• Make tests transparent to the public by posting on the DOE Web site and require students to take a certain sequence of rigorous core curriculum courses in order to graduate.

• Align a relevant, challenging curriculum to a test that provides a common measure.

• Develop a longitudinal tracking system.

Currently, students are not motivated to do well on the Hawaii Standard Assessment, because it has no relevance to them, but that can change, he says.

Overall, parents value college and students can be motivated if they understand how a post-secondary education will open windows of opportunity for them.

References:

http://www.achieve.org

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