Schools’ progress heartening

Resting on one’s laurels is never a good option, but every now and then, people deserve the chance at least to enjoy them.

This week, those people are the students, teachers and administrators of the state Department of Education, where satisfying gains were made in reading and math scores.

The good news is particularly welcome given all the strain the educational community has faced in recent years, everything from Furlough Fridays to stubbornly persistent labor disputes.

Even federal education officials had come down hard with preliminary grades of Hawaii’s school reform efforts. Initial delays with the initiatives and the still-pending contract impasse drew a slap last year from the U.S. Department of Education, which put the state’s $75 million Race to the Top grant on "high risk" status.

But now, the head of that agency, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is describing the current progress as an "encouraging sign" that bodes well for further advances.

That encouragement must spur school leaders to stick with the DOE’s more rigorous standards for students and teachers.

The higher scores statewide — up five percentage points in the Hawaii State Assessment’s reading and math tests — means a better showing under the federal No Child Left Behind law, with more schools hitting their Adequate Yearly Prog­ress goals in reading and math proficiency.

It’s risky to infer too much from this data, but it seems a fair guess that more credit is due to changes made under Race to the Top than to the No Child protocols. The state has labored under the No Child protocols for years with mixed result.

Many of the act’s critics make a persuasive argument that, despite the general wisdom of the drive to hold schools more accountable, the law’s one-size-fits-all approach limits its effectiveness and delivers a punitive sense of failure to schools that might do better with greater flexibility in handling their particular challenges. If the law is to be reauthorized, it would need a radical overhaul.

Test results yield at least some evidence that students can turn around less-than-stellar academic performances. And this suggests the DOE’s tentative moves toward a teaching model based on proficiency rather than a more rigid learning and testing timetable may have promise.

The state Board of Education has begun discussing a draft strategic plan update that would require students to demonstrate mastery of material according to common standards before advancing academically.

This "proficiency-based education" model would essentially end the practice of social promotions of students to the next grade level, along with their age cohort.

And it also would mean keeping track of students in danger of falling behind, reinforcing instruction for them and giving them additional opportunities, through assignments or tests, to show they’ve learned.

This strategy is still very much in the testing stages around the country, and Hawaii can afford to learn from other school districts before abandoning traditional approaches to testing and grading.

But Hawaii already has established some of the student-tracking databases that are needed to make a start.

And based on experience in states such as Oregon and New Hampshire that have pioneered proficiency-based education, it remains a promising avenue, one that would assist students through hurdles and enable the more academically gifted to pursue enrichment opportunities.

In all, it’s been an uplifting few weeks for Hawaii’s public school system, one noted by the U.S. education secretary. Even with its challenges, Duncan said, "Hawaii has maintained a relentless commitment to moving forward."

That is indeed a laurel that educators and students should wear with pride.