Standardized test results released yesterday indicate that student performance on the Stanford Achievement Test, a national barometer of achievement, has changed little since students last took the test in April 2000. At times Hawai'i students beat the national average, but for the most part have fallen behind their own scores from a few years ago.

The SAT, which measures how well students perform on questions above, below and on their grade level, should appear familiar to parents because the state has used the assessment for several years.

But the results of the Hawai'i State Assessment are new. The Hawai'i test represents a key part of the standards and accountability movement — essentially testing students on statewide academic goals — that the Department of Education has been moving to for several years.

DOE testing experts, university professors and representatives from Harcourt Educational Measurement, publishers of the SAT, designed the Hawai'i test.

"This gives us a good temperature check with standards implementation," Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said. "We've been waiting for this a long time."

But that temperature check shows that most Hawai'i students do not meet proficiency on what they are supposed to be learning in school.

While test-makers warned for months of the difficulty of the new Hawai'i test, yesterday's results made their words ring true: Just 42.3 percent of 10th graders met proficiency in reading; 20.2 percent met proficiency in math.

DOE officials have said they will keep the standards high and will not "dumb down" the test by making the proficiency level easier to meet.

But this set of test scores indicates that most schools must improve their scores by dozens of points over the next several years to comply with the federal education law known as the No Child Left Behind Act. That law requires steady and continual improvement of test scores until all students have reached proficiency by 2014.

The Hawai'i State Assessment creates the baseline from which all schools will have to improve to meet NCLB requirements.

About 55,000 public school students took the tests last April over a period of seven or eight school days. The tests were given at the same time.

Most schools — and most students — scored much higher on the nationally normed SAT-9 than they did on the Hawai'i Standards Assessment.

Board of Education member Karen Knudsen said the two sets of scores are likely to confuse parents when they see their school's results and their own child's scores.

"Normally at least on math on the national tests we score higher," she said. "This is a surprise."

Sari Kakihara, a counselor and testing coordinator at Ali'iolani Elementary School, said the school was shocked with the difference between the tests results.

School officials first received the SAT results, with about 90 percent of their students at the average or above average levels on all tests, landing far above the national and statewide scores. But on the Hawai'i Standards Assessment, for example, 65 percent of their fifth-graders were approaching proficiency.

"Hawai'i has raised the bar. It's a big difference," Kakihara said. "We were really happy with the scores we first received. When we looked at the state scores and we had a lot of students that were approaching proficiency, it bummed us out a little."

Students had to write out their answers on the Hawai'i Standards Assessment, including showing their work in math — which the test-makers say creates a much more difficult test. The SAT is multiple choice.

Ali'iolani has taken practice tests, does its own standardized testing in all grades and focused on writing skills for the new test. "You don't just bubble in answers anymore," Kakihara said. "Even with math you have to write and explain."

Although the new Hawai'i test will be used to determine compliance with No Child Left Behind, the SAT gives the state an idea of how its doing against the rest of the country.

On the SAT, elementary schools are exceeding national averages in math and reading, but middle schools and high schools are lagging behind.

Although eighth-graders met the national average in reading, they fell 2 points below in math. Tenth-graders did not meet the national average in either math or reading.

The state's strongest SAT scores are in fifth-grade math, with 34.4 percent of students scoring in the above average category.

The weakest results are in 10th-grade reading, with only 6.8 percent of students above average.

Overall, students did better on elementary math and eighth-grade reading than they did in 2000, but fared worse in elementary reading, eighth-grade math and 10th-grade reading and math.

The scores continue to indicate that high-poverty schools have trouble mastering reading and math skills at the same time. Schools tend to do well in one or the other but not both. Overall, many high-poverty schools scored lower than other schools.

With the continuing troubles of the Hawai'i economy, school officials say that problem is growing. Now, about half of the state's schools are categorized as high-poverty.

Ronald Heck, professor of educational administration at the University of Hawai'i, noted the relationship between socioeconomics and test results.

"The reality is there are these very different community demographics and those affect standardized tests. Reading in particular is based on what students bring to school with them," Heck said. "That's going to be a consistent challenge, and it is more than saying everyone is going to meet the same standard."

Others also noted the gap.

Robert Elliott, principal at Iroquois Point Elementary School, said his campus has the benefit of involved parents and stable families, in addition to the hard work that the teachers and students do. Iroquois Point made the state's SAT honor roll this week for exceeding the national average in reading and math results.

"On one hand we're so thrilled at being an honor roll school," Elliott said. "On the other hand, it's embarrassing. The other schools are not failing. If I look at the scores I can tell you where the two-car garages are. The teachers everywhere are good teachers."