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More Hawaii public school students are meeting or exceeding national science benchmarks, but achievement levels on the exam known as the “Nation’s Report Card” still trail behind national averages, results released Wednesday night show.
About 2,300 fourth-graders and 2,200 eighth-graders in Hawaii public schools took the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, last spring. Nationally, 115,400 fourth-graders and 110,900 eighth-graders took the exam.
Hawaii posted larger gains than the national averages for both the number of students testing proficient and average test scores between 2009 and 2015, but achievement in those areas ranks near the bottom of states.
Overall, 30 percent of Hawaii’s fourth-graders tested at or above proficiency in science, up from 25 percent in 2009, the last time the science test was administered. Nationally, 37 percent of public school fourth-graders tested proficient, compared with 34 percent in 2009.
Twenty-three percent of Hawaii’s eighth-graders, meanwhile, met science proficiency targets — a six-point increase from 17 percent in 2009. Nationally, 33 percent of eighth-graders tested proficient or higher, up from 30 percent in 2009.
The standardized assessment covers three content areas: physical science, life science, and earth and space sciences. When the science exam was revised in 2009, officials said the results could not be compared with those from previous assessment years. (A separate NAEP exam is administered in reading and math every two years.)
Achievement levels are set by the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent, nonpartisan organization established by Congress. Students performing at or above proficient on NAEP exams “demonstrate solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter,” according to the board.
The science results are reported as average scores on a scale from zero to 300.
Hawaii’s fourth-graders on average scored 146, up six points from 2009. Nationally, the average fourth-grade science score was 153, up from 149 in 2009. At the state level, fourth-grade scores ranged from a high of 165 in New Hampshire and Virginia to 140 in California. Hawaii’s average score was higher than five other states.
The average science score for Hawaii’s eighth-graders, meanwhile, edged up to 144 from 139 in 2009. The average national eighth-grade score mirrored the national fourth-grade score at 153. At the state level, eighth-grade scores ranged from 166 in Utah to 140 in Mississippi. Hawaii’s average score was higher than four other states.
Hawaii high school students and students in grades four and eight also are tested annually at the state level for science, as required by the U.S. Department of Education. Results released this month show statewide science proficiency increased to 43 percent from 41 percent the previous year.
No surprise!
As long as we have the only one of its kind in the nation statewide school “district”, it doesn’t matter who is on the BOE, whether it is elected or appointed or who is chosen as Supe. The bright capable kids now trapped in the maw of this bureaucratic black hole will remain stuck in the bowels of student achievement nationally until this fundamental structural problem is recognized and solved.
The system itself is unworkable or as the legendary Joan Husted once put it, afflicted with “boiling dysfunction.” It is an enormous money sucking glob of bureaucratic, non teaching desk drivers that consumes billions of dollars very few of which trickle down to the plankton level of the DOE food chain, the classroom.
The kind of money allocated each year to the DOE, every student should be chauffer driven to school in a Rolls Royce. Instead students are asked to bring in supplies of paper towel, Kleenex, 3 ring notebooks &c. at the beginning of each school year besides which schools have to have annual fund raisers to support campus activities and many teachers have to go out of pocket to furnish their classrooms. It is a very expensive game of bureaucratic crack the whip in which students and their teachers are assigned the role of tail end Charlie.
In this dysfunctional chaos is it an wonder the bright capable kids whose intellectual birthright is being stolen consistently rank at or near the bottom in scholastic achievement? Believe me it is not our KIDS or their classroom teachers who are worst in the nation.
The only way to free the kids from this gold plated statewide tax supported baby sitting system in which they are now being warehoused is to abolish the BOE, literally dis-integrate the massive DOE and send a few of the remnants to LOCAL (county and sub county) school districts whose officials can be held ACCOUNTABLE for PERFORMANCE. Right now there is ZERO accountability within DOE for ANYTHING.
It is no coincidence that DOE has not been subjected to an outside audit since 1974. No telling what might crawl out from under this rock if it were to be overturned. You can well believe the under rock denizens don’t want to be exposed to the glare of TRUTH.
Until we can get a complete and long overdue separation of School and State, the best we can hope for as an interim measure is Home Rule For Schools.
Face it when it comes to the critical function of education, state level politicians and bureaucrats have more than demonstrated they can’t hack it.
How about a new posting versus the same one you posted on the article about “Board of Education to start search to replace Schools Superintendent Matayoshi.”
Mark of a rookie poster.
Future Kama’aina “D” voters, just like their grades on their report cards.
As long as the majority of locals keep voting in inept and corrupt Democrats whom keep issuing out welfare checks and supporting racketeering acts like the Jones Act to keep S_T_U_P_I_D oppressed, future children a.k.a. “D” voters can look forward to a rewarding career at Wal-Mart and the hospitality industry to serve those that excelled in the STEM subjects from all over the world and didn’t have their hard earned savings taxed to pay for a choo-choo that starts from no where and ends at nowhere. haaaaaa
Actually, I think the explanation is much simpler than that. We are an island full of a mixture of ethnic backgrounds which is culminated with a variety of languages and attitudes like no other state. That in itself is not the only reason, but, adds to the difficulty our children have in keeping up with the rest of the country.
Like no other state? Clearly you have never left the Nei and seen the real world.
Mainland schools are working with new immigrants from Middle Eastern countries along with the same mixture of ethnic backgrounds in the Nei.
They have a far larger language problem than the Nei. Not to mention this is nothing new for the Nei. Been going on for decades yet no real progress has been made. Yes, our educational bureaucracy hasn’t got a clue what to do. Never has, never will. Nei standard.
I am shocked, just shocked………what kind of hand wringing can I do?
tell new couples not to have so many kids?…….or buckle down and study harder?
How competent are our teachers? Some teachers probably just goes through the motions cuz they have tenor. Teachers should be paid for what they accomplish & not how many years you are in the DOE.
Why are Hawaii students behind the national average? With all the Asians (Japanese and Chinese) here, I would think the scores would be above the national average. On the mainland, it’s the Asian students that are doing the best as a group in schools.
IRT Sailfish1, the State BOE/DOE believes in equality and thus holds back the best and brightest, be they Asian, White, or Polynesian. The system fails our children. They do have gender neutral bathrooms, elimination of prayer in school, etc.
All it takes are a lot of non Asian underachievers to lower the curve. Don’t forget that Asian kids with parents that expect them to excel do not stay in public school. By the time 8th grade comes around, they are going to Iolani, MIdpacific or Punahou.
Too many days off for teachers functions.
Our utterly clueless, dysfunctional, legend in their own mind, educational bureaucracy has a quick answer to this debacle.
Give them the billions and billions of dollars they say is required to fix all the educational problems. Trust them to do what is right and oh by the way, never, ever, audit us. We know what we are doing.
Really? Total shibai. Our educational bureaucracy is the problem.
So much for all the pay raises the Union (and teachers) have promised about higher pay buys ‘better education’.