Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said the state is "committed to continuing the momentum" seen on national test results released Thursday showing Hawaii’s public school fourth-graders for the first time surpassed national peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The state’s fourth-graders scored an average 243 points in math out of a possible 500 points — two points higher than the national average, marking the first time Hawaii has topped the national average in any subject since state results were first recorded in the 1990s.
Hawaii was one of 16 states with increases in that category. This year’s fourth-grade math scores — up four points from 2011, the last time the test was given — tied for eighth best in the nation.
"As we say here in Hawaii, imua," Matayoshi said. "We’re going to fight and go forward."
Overall, Hawaii’s fourth- and eighth-graders made gains in reading and math, outpacing or matching the year-over-year growth in national averages for the same subjects and prompting praise from federal education officials.
But eighth-grade math and reading scores and fourth-grade reading scores remained below national averages.
"Hawaii maybe hasn’t always been thought of as a leader in education, quite frankly," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday on a conference call with Matayoshi and Gov. Neil Abercrombie. "But this year’s NAEP results show that Hawaii’s students made very, very encouraging progress. They continue to improve in nearly every area."
Duncan added, "This is a day of celebration, and I’m so proud of what every educator in Hawaii has done to get to this point."
He said experts scoffed at the U.S. Department of Education’s investment in Hawaii through a $75 million Race to the Top grant that proposed sweeping education reforms.
"I think Hawaii, to their tremendous credit, has proved a lot of skeptics wrong," he said.
He highlighted Hawaii, the District of Columbia and Tennessee as top performers "who’ve knocked the ball out of the park."
The results come as the state’s public school system continues implementing a host of educational reforms aimed at improving student performance, turning around low-performing schools and boosting teacher effectiveness. Much of that effort has been funded with the four-year Race grant awarded in 2010.
"Race to the Top was really the thing that allowed us to probably try to do more than maybe anybody else thought was possible," Matayoshi said on the call. "It allowed us to aspire to something that was much larger than what any individual reform effort has ever done in the past."
About 6,300 fourth-graders and 5,500 eighth-graders statewide took the test, also known as the "Nation’s Report Card," during a testing window from January through March. Nationwide more than 376,000 fourth-graders and 341,000 eighth-graders took the exam.
NAEP achievement levels are set by the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent, bipartisan organization established by Congress.
The results for Hawaii also showed:
» Forty-six percent of fourth-graders scored at the "proficient" or "advanced" level in math, higher than the national average of 42 percent in that category.
» In reading, fourth-graders edged up slightly with an average score of 215 points, up one point from 2011. The national average for fourth-graders in reading this year was 221 points. Thirty percent of the group scored at the "proficient" or "advanced" level in reading, below the national average of 34 percent for that category.
» Eighth-graders scored an average of 260 points in reading, up three points from 2011. The group trailed the national average of 266 points. Twenty-eight percent of the group scored at the "proficient" or "advanced" level in reading, below the national average of 35 percent in that category.
» In math, eighth-graders had an average score of 281 points, below the national average of 284 but up from 278 in 2011. Thirty-two percent of the group scored at the "proficient" or "advanced" level in math, two percentage points off the national average.
The state Department of Education noted that Hawaii’s scores have improved amid an increase in the number of students whose first language is not English, from 5 percent in 2003 to 10 percent this year.
"Also during this time period, the percentage of students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (a key indicator of poverty) has climbed to over 50 percent for both grades," Robert Hillier, Hawaii’s NAEP state coordinator, said in a statement.
Duncan said Hawaii, like all states, has room to improve.
"We do expect more from our students, we expect more from our teachers and principals, and we’re trying to support them more," Matayoshi said. "We are committed to doing better."
Duncan also said the scores in general should be looked at with other student achievement indicators such as graduation rates, college enrollment rates and investments in early-childhood education.
Matayoshi said Hawaii is seeing gains in those areas as well.
"We’re hitting it on all fronts," Abercrombie said.
