Schools board wants kids to take fewer tests in academic year

Hawaii public school students are expected to spend less time taking standardized assessments next school year under efforts announced Tuesday to move away from a testing culture some educators have called toxic.

For the just-ended school year, students statewide were required to take up to six standardized tests, depending on grade level. Because schools and complex areas could choose to implement additional assessments, some teachers reported their elementary and middle school students took 10 standardized tests last year.

At a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, officials announced three changes, including the elimination of some tests, that will take effect for the 2017-18 school year.

“In the strategic plan … the board said we want to make sure we’re really minimizing the amount of required testing that we have of all of our students,” said Tammi Chun, assistant superintendent for strategy, innovation and performance. “So we’ve taken that very seriously along with all the feedback that we’ve gotten from teachers and principals and students, and tried to make some updates to the assessment program.”

The state will continue to test students annually in grades 3 through 8 and 11 on English language arts and mathematics on the Smarter Balanced Assessment to satisfy U.S. Department of Education requirements. The Smarter Balanced exam three years ago replaced the Hawaii State Assessment and is designed to emphasize critical thinking, analytical skills and problem-solving over rote memorization.

Next year Hawaii will implement a streamlined version of the exams, which is estimated to shave off roughly one-fifth of the testing time. Some 90,000 Hawaii students take the Common Core-aligned tests each spring, with the average student taking seven hours total to complete both subjects on the electronic assessment, which has no time limit. The average test time for high-schoolers was 4 hours and 40 minutes.

DOE officials said the revised exam is expected to reduce the average test-taking time by 90 minutes per student across both subjects.

The department also announced high school juniors will no longer be required to take the ACT college entrance exam each year. High-schoolers had been required to take the ACT exam — which on average took four hours — as well as the Smarter Balanced math and language arts tests and a standardized science exam.

Hawaii in 2014 began requiring all public school juniors to take the ACT exam to help assess students’ college-and-career readiness. The ACT is mandatory in 20 states and optional in others. Hawaii schools will still have the option to offer the exam to students.

The third announced change involves participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The reading and math exam is administered by the federal Education Department in odd-numbered years to a representative sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students in every state, and is considered the benchmark of student achievement in U.S. public schools.

While participation in the math and reading tests is required by the federal government, periodic assessments on eight other subjects — including the arts, civics, American history, geography and economics — are optional. Chun said Hawaii will not participate in any of the optional tests.

Several teachers who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting argued that the changes don’t do enough to reduce testing time for students.

“While the DOE’s attempt to reduce testing time for students is notable, it does not go far enough to effectively move schools away from the toxic testing culture that still pushes school administrators and complex-area superintendents to focus more on test scores than actual learning,” said Waiakea High School English teacher Mireille Ellsworth.

“As teachers have been testifying to this board ad nauseam,” she said, “teachers learn about the strengths and weaknesses of their students through various authentic types of formative assessments that include classroom assignments and projects, observations, informal conversations with students, student-teacher conferences and teacher-made assessments.”

Corey Rosenlee, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, asked the board to consider updating its policy on statewide assessments to limit the number of tests in each grade level to four. Under HSTA’s proposed revision, schools would need to seek a waiver from the board to exceed that cap.

“It merely codifies into board policy our collective effort to limit testing time,” Rosenlee said.