DOE to stop ranking schools

Hawaii public schools starting this fall will no longer be ranked against each other on how well their students perform on standardized tests and other academic benchmarks.

Under a revised school accountability system the Board of Education approved this week, the Department of Education says it will discontinue its annual ranking and classification of schools, which some viewed as punitive. Officials say the DOE will continue to provide data to help schools make improvements, but low-performing schools will not be labeled as failing under the accountability system known as Strive HI.

In addition to removing the rankings, the revised accountability system — dubbed Strive HI 3.0 — now includes an option for schools to select additional “local success measures” to be included on their annual school report. For example, a school may choose to measure how well students do on a capstone project or track its progress in reducing suspension rates.

“Schools will be able to identify measures that are in alignment with their academic and financial plans,” Assistant Superintendent Tammi Chun said Tuesday during a presentation to the BOE. “This might be information about student performance in other subjects. It might also be interdisciplinary work, project-based work, where students are being assessed at the school level. When we hear about authentic assessment or classroom-based assessment, this is an opportunity for that.”

The state began revamping the accountability system to better align with the DOE’s newly revised strategic plan and meet requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The department tapped school principals and complex-area superintendents to help with the redesign and held public feedback sessions.

“We’re really focusing on state and school progress on the strategic plan’s student success objectives,” Chun said. By providing state- and school-level reports each year, she added, the system aims to “empower our various educators and community stakeholders with information to take action on student learning.”

First approved in 2013, the state-developed Strive HI system largely replaced federal mandates under the former No Child Left Behind law. The DOE has said it was designed to move away from using test scores alone to grade schools, and to help schools better prepare students for success in college and careers.

In addition to tracking students’ performance and growth on standardized tests in language arts, math and science, Strive HI also measures:

>> Chronic absenteeism.

>> Retention rates (students who are held back a grade).

>> On-time graduation and college-going rates for high schools.

>> Achievement gap between high-needs students — English-language learners, those economically disadvantaged or receiving special education services — and their peers on standardized tests.

>> Number of high school students taking and passing advanced courses.

New targets include tracking the progress of a school’s English-language learners and evaluating school climate, which could include social, emotional and behavioral supports for students.

Each year, the DOE would rank the performance of all 256 public schools and 34 charter schools to determine where they landed in one of five categories: recognition (top 5 percent of schools), continuous improvement, focus, priority (lowest 5 percent of schools) and superintendent’s zone for persistently low-performing schools.

Kau-Keaau-Pahoa complex-area superintendent Chad Keone Farias praised the change.

“Principals overwhelmingly appreciated the removal of the rankings,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. “In a geographically hard-to-(staff) area, it makes it very difficult, even more difficult, when teachers, (educational assistants), faculty are labeled ‘last place’ when they’re working really, really hard. Yet they appreciate the clear data that helps them create their plans that they need to set very clear targets based on the needs of their community.”

While the overall changes don’t represent a huge shift, school leaders said they believed their input was valued by the department in crafting the revisions. More than 60 public school principals submitted written testimony in support of the changes, and asked BOE members to advance the plan to give them enough planning time before the new school year begins Aug. 7.

Wade Araki, principal of Kaimuki High School, said he appreciates that the new system is flexible.

“The new Strive HI accountability framework is more state driven and not merely driven by federal compliance. The framework is also flexible enough to allow me to select school level success measures to supplement common statewide indicators. This will give a clear and concise accounting of my school’s progress,” he wrote. “The framework empowers educators with the information to make the changes needed at the schools to improve student learning.”

Fred Murphy, principal of Mililani High School, said Strive HI 3.0 represents compromise and collaboration, following “unprecedented outreach” by the DOE administration.

Several teachers, however, including Hawaii State Teachers Association President Corey Rosenlee, criticized the plan for continuing what they see as an over-reliance on standardized testing.

“Unfortunately, the school accountability system being offered by the DOE fails to forge a new direction for our school system, suppresses innovation and overemphasizes standardized testing,” Rosenlee said.

“Studies show that test scores strongly correlate with socioeconomic status: Rich schools do well while poor schools struggle. Because of the pressure to perform well on tests and their inability to control the socioeconomic status of their students, struggling schools cut back on arts and cultural education, career and technical courses, electives, and more … to boost test scores.”

He called on the board to hold off on approving a new school accountability system until newly named Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has a chance to weigh in. Rosenlee had argued that Kishimoto, whose three-year term begins Aug. 1, will have her hands tied.