School progress plan readied

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

Hawai'i school officials yesterday gave preliminary approval to the state's plan for holding schools accountable to the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

It also represents a major administrative step in the state's compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act and sets the stage for a multi-year push intended to bring all Hawai'i public schools up to standard.

The No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President Bush in January 2002, requires all public schools to show progress in reading and math every year. Additionally, every demographic and racial subgroup at a school also must show progress in both subjects or the entire school will fail to meet the federal requirements.

Eventually, schools will have to test for science proficiency as well.

Hawai'i and most other states still are not in compliance with the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But states are scrambling to come into compliance with No Child Left Behind because it is the first act that threatens sanctions, including the eventual loss of federal education money, if standards aren't met.

The DOE will receive about $63 million in federal money this year, $38 million of which is for high-poverty schools.

By tomorrow all states must present the U.S. Department of Education with their plans for holding schools accountable for making progress each year, reporting performance to parents and helping students achieve proficiency in the tested subjects.

Several states submitted their plans early. Bush has given approval to five of them: Massachusetts, New York, Indiana, Colorado and Ohio.

Federal education officials will visit each state this spring, review the accountability workbooks and suggest revisions. Final versions of all state plans are expected to be ready by May 1.

The Hawai'i plan requires schools to meet math and reading standards in all subgroups of students. Also, schools will have to improve graduation rates in high schools or retention rates in elementary and middle schools. If at least 95 percent of students in each subgroup fail to take the standardized test, the school will automatically fail.

There are 37 different conditions that schools must meet.

No Child Left Behind is known as a conjunctive model, because all conditions must be met in order to pass. In cumulative models, an average of all student test scores is considered.

Because the No Child Left Behind Act requires 100 percent proficiency from each subgroup by 2013, the Department of Education will have to outline benchmarks that schools must meet along the way.

Michael Heim, director of planning and evaluation at the DOE, said when scores of the Hawai'i standardized test are released next week, the state will outline what proficiency level — 40 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent and so on to reach 100 percent — schools will have to meet over the next several years, using the latest test scores at the baseline.

The targets will be the same for every school, every grade level and every student subgroup. "It doesn't matter if you're coming from here or there, with this set of circumstances or that set of circumstances," Heim said.

However, test scores from previous years indicate 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.

Already in Hawai'i, 82 of the public schools in high-poverty areas have been labeled as needing improvement or being a "corrective action" campus, meaning they have failed to make progress on standardized tests for several years. Kaluwela Elementary and Solomon Elementary schools are the only high-poverty campuses in the state that have met the state's goals of "adequate yearly progress" four years in a row.

A school board committee gave preliminary approval to the plan yesterday. It will go to the federal government tomorrow and is expected to receive approval from the full Board of Education Feb. 6.

Board member Carol Gabbard thumbed through the thick booklet looking for some positive news in the middle of the myriad details on the ways in which schools can fail to meet the standards of No Child Left Behind.

"What do we do for schools that do make adequate yearly progress?" Gabbard asked.

The question garnered chuckles from the audience of DOE administrators.

Schools that meet all of the academic indicators will get recognition from the state. But Gabbard wondered if they also got additional money as a reward.

"There's not enough money as it is," board member Denise Matsumoto said.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.