State's plan for schools wins federal approval

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

A plan by Hawai'i public schools to meet the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act won acceptance from the U.S. Department of Education yesterday.

Brian Jones, senior adviser and general counsel to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, announced yesterday during a visit to Kauluwela Elementary School in Liliha that Hawai'i has reached a major administrative milestone in complying with the law.

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

"It may not sound like a big deal, but these are difficult things to do," Jones said.

The approval sets the stage for a multiyear push to raise test scores at all Hawai'i public schools. Although the plan has met the requirements of No Child Left Behind, most Hawai'i schools will have to significantly improve test scores to meet the demands of the law and do so under rigorous standards set by the state Department of Education.

Still, yesterday's announcement was welcomed by Hawai'i DOE officials who spent months developing the accountability plan.

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

For the first time, Hawai'i test data show 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 95 percent of students in each group take the standardized test, the school automatically fails.

The rigid demands of the law have led to complaints from officials in Hawai'i and across the country.

States consider the No Child Left Behind Act a mandate not backed up with federal money. But Jones said the federal education spending is at an adequate level for states to meet the law's minimum requirements. "There are some states that will do more than what No Child Left Behind requires," Jones said. "If you look at the bare requirement of the law it's not an unfunded mandate."

Hawai'i educators and lawmakers disagree. There was a movement in the Legislature this year to pull out of No Child Left Behind and forego federal financing altogether to avoid the expense. The DOE has said it will cost hundreds of millions to implement.

Rep. K. Mark Takai, D-34th (Pearl City, Newtown, Royal Summit), called the law a recipe for failure because it is inflexible and does not recognize the challenges that schools face. Takai said Kauluwela Elementary, a school that was touted yesterday as being highly successful in improving achievement levels for its high-poverty students, might not meet its target improvement level next year under the most strict interpretation of the federal law.

"Kauluwela is a success story," Takai said. "No Child Left Behind won't recognize Kauluwela as a success as early as next year. The truth is, it's not about the federal money. It's about labeling schools as corrective action, as failures, when in fact that school is doing quite well."

Kathy Kawaguchi, the DOE assistant superintendent overseeing compliance with No Child Left Behind, also said there are still some areas of the federal law that Hawai'i officials have not been able to clarify. Among them is the question of the state's Hawaiian-language immersion programs and the federal law's requirement that schools test students in English. Hawaiian immersion programs don't introduce English in the classroom until the fifth grade, two years after standardized testing has started.

Hawai'i and other states with native language programs have been seeking an exemption to the rule.

Jones said that while he doesn't think teaching the Hawaiian language and testing in English are mutually exclusive, the law does not give the U.S. Department of Education much flexibility in its interpretation.

"This is a law that is very detailed," Jones said. "It's very prescriptive in some ways."

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

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.

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

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.

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

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