Posted on: Monday, February 7, 2005
Test-score gap remains for low-income pupils
| • | Chart: The achievement gap |
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Low-income students in Hawai'i's public schools had higher test scores last school year but still remained well below the state average, a troubling achievement gap that may grow as academic goals become more stringent under federal law.
An annual report by the state Department of Education to the federal government broke out the student test scores released last summer by income and race. The report is required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to document differences in student achievement so schools can identify students who need help.
Low-income students, like students overall across the Islands, made progress on the state's reading and math tests, but the gap between their scores and the state average was virtually the same as the previous school year.
The report, educators say, underscores both the value and the unfairness of the law. Schools, many for the first time, are openly confronting the influence of income and race on student achievement. But schools are also expected to wipe away generations of inequality on a rigid timetable so all students are proficient in core subjects by 2014.
On the Mainland, the gaps between students are solidly rooted in race and income. In multicultural Hawai'i, the differences between students are more closely tied to income, with race mostly a factor for Native Hawaiian and Pacific islanders who live in poor or rural areas.
Over the past two school years, according to the DOE's reports, the rate of low-income students proficient or advanced in math and reading is about 10 percentage points to 15 percentage points below state averages. While that is not unexpected, it is still striking given that overall state scores are also relatively low.
The achievement gap is felt the most at the school level, where teachers and principals have to get students from different backgrounds to achieve the same standards. Educators fear that a scheduled increase this school year in academic targets will be too much for many schools and could threaten the optimism after last year's gains. Schools must have 44 percent of their students proficient in reading — up from 30 percent — and 28 percent proficient in math — up from 10 percent.
"Every teacher, every principal, every school is focused. I sincerely believe we will get there. We will reach those benchmarks," said Katherine Kawaguchi, a DOE assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum. "The bar has been raised significantly."
Students are now tested in the third, fifth, eighth and 10th grades, although more grades will be added over the next few years and the Bush administration wants to expand the law more fully into high schools.
Hawai'i has nearly another decade to meet the law's goals — and is almost halfway there in reading in some grades — so educators are looking beyond the immediate future toward ideas that might have an impact years from now.
School administrators believe that attention to reading in the early grades, along with linking classroom instruction to the material on the tests, has made a difference in third- and fifth-grade scores that could translate into higher performance in the upper grades. Two other steps — lowering class sizes in the early grades and expanding access to preschool — could help low-income students who often enter school already behind their classmates.
A study just released by Kamehameha Schools found that Native Hawaiian students in charter schools are doing at least as well, and in some cases much better, than Native Hawaiian students in traditional public schools. Like other early charter school research, the study cautions that such comparisons are complex and involve numerous variables that can influence the findings.
For instance, parental involvement — a major factor in student achievement — is often greater in charter schools. The schools are also typically much smaller than traditional public schools so students are more likely to get individual attention from teachers. The Native Hawaiian-themes at many charter schools may also capture the attention of students who feel more connected to their culture.
The study reinforces anecdotes from parents and charter-school administrators who say that some students are making rapid improvement. The study found that Native Hawaiian students in traditional public schools were more than four times as likely to be chronically absent than those who attend charter schools.
Under No Child Left Behind, the test is not just whether schools are improving, but whether they are improving fast enough for schools to escape sanctions. Over half of the state's schools made their targets last school year, and the DOE has sought to give others that are making progress some leeway, but all schools are expected to eventually close the achievement gap and get results regardless of socioeconomic or racial differences.
"I think the secret is the parent must be involved. You have to be connected somehow," said Kehau Marshall, whose son, Kai, is in the sixth grade at Kanu 'O Ka 'Aina, a Big Island charter school.
Her son attended a Hawaiian language immersion school until second grade and was reading below grade level before he moved to the charter school. She believes that the charter school's cultural component and project-based approach to learning has helped her son tremendously. She said he now reads above grade level and does well in math.
But she realizes that some schools, under pressure to improve immediately, do not always have time to give all students the attention they need.
"He's like two different people," Marshall said of her son's performance over the past few years. "What the charter school allowed him to do was to learn at his own time."
Reach Derrick DePledge at 525-8070 or ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.
