Hawai'i is among the first 25 states to have its accountability plan approved. Essentially, the plan outlines how Hawai'i will hold schools accountable for improving standardized test scores and sets benchmarks that all schools should meet.

In a written statement from Washington, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige praised the efforts of Hawai'i educators.

"Hawai'i's strong accountability plan demonstrates a clear commitment by the state to do what is necessary to ensure that every student in Hawai'i ­ regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic background or disability ­ has equal access to a high-quality education," Paige said.

No Child Left Behind, the federal education law, requires steady and continual improvement of reading and math test scores until all students have reached proficiency by 2014. Additionally, every demographic and racial subgroup at each school also must show progress in both subjects or the entire school will fail to meet the federal requirements.

The Hawai'i Department of Education had to submit its accountability plan to federal officials Jan. 31, then went through a peer review this spring. All state plans are supposed to be approved by June 8.

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

While today's announcement was welcomed by Hawai'i officials who spent months developing the accountability plan, the work of actually improving test scores and student performance ­ the true measure of federal approval ­ will have to happen in the classroom.

Nearly all schools will have to improve their test scores in most cases by dozens of points ­ and do it quickly ­ to avoid sanctions that range from paying for private tutoring for students to having the school's staff reorganized.

Test scores from previous years 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. Also, moving test scores consistently upward has proven difficult for most schools in Hawai'i and elsewhere.

The accountability plan is based on the Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards State Assessment, a test given each spring that has proven a difficult challenge for most students.

Under the accountability plan, all schools should have at least 39 percent of their students scoring proficient on the math and reading portions of the test right now.

Last year, just 37 percent of 10th-graders met proficiency in reading; 17.3 percent met proficiency in math. By the 2004-2005 school year, 51 percent of students should be scoring proficient.

While some other states have lowered their standards to avoid federal sanctions, DOE officials have said they will keep the standards high and will not make the proficiency level easier to meet.

For the first time, Hawai'i test data shows how students at each school score across ethnic groups (using census categories of white, black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian-Pacific Islander), and how students who are high-poverty, special education or of limited English proficiency are scoring against the general population. This is meant to ensure that schools are improving the academic performance of all of their students and not shielding one group's low test scores by averaging them with the whole school.

Also, schools 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 automatically fails.

In all, there are 37 different conditions that schools must meet to pass.

School-by-school test results and the state's accountability plan are available at the DOE's Web site, http://arch.k12.hi.us/

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.