Educational standards
Some schools
ahead of the pack
Standards-based learning is
already taking place in some
isle classroomsTransition not so easy
By Crystal Kua
Star-BulletinFor Honowai Elementary Principal Curtis Young, last night's adoption of Hawaii's refined standards by the state Board of Education is right on track with the work already undertaken by his school to implement standards-based learning.
"We're pretty pleased with what has come out because what we are doing already falls in line with what the superintendent wants us to do," he said about the BOE's action.
Honowai in Waipahu and Nanakuli Elementary are using a national standards-based program called America's Choice to line up their school instruction with state standards.
It's just one of many avenues some schools have embarked on to bring standards into the classroom.
Valerie Manoa's Nanakuli Elementary students noted one day that they had something in common with the crowded elephants at the Honolulu Zoo -- making sure standards are followed as part of their lives, too.
MORE:
On the books: A rule allowing students to work to pay for lost or damaged textbooks is approved.
The zoo nearly lost its elephants this year because their habitat didn't meet federal standards.
The kids knew about standards. Manoa had them plastered everywhere in her fourth-grade classroom: on the wall, in the back of student notebooks, on homework and on notes that go home to parents.
"I love talking about standards," she said.
So does 9-year-old Cherish Kalilikane, who was shy but who spoke right up when asked how she knew she met a standard in an assignment on the creation of a map.
"I checked if it had all the things. Then it goes on the wall," she said. "I feel happy (when it's on the wall) 'cause I finished it and I met the standards."
Model class
This Leeward classroom is seen as a good example of how standards have become part of students' daily academic lives."We do lessons to help the children get the idea of what standards are ... so that when they do their final project, they know better how to reach the standards," said teacher Cathy Watanabe, who piloted the school's standards classroom that Manoa took over.
More important, however, is that students understood why they were learning what they were learning, she said.
A noticeable transformation came in the quality of work produced by students -- it was easier to get them to do more rigorous assignments, she said.
In one lesson, students were assigned to build Polynesian voyaging canoes out of Styrofoam. They had to write an accompanying report that had to include information on the Polynesians, their origin and the kinds of plants and animals they brought with them. The students also had to link their canoe building with the methods used by the Polynesians.
"Because this was the first unit that we did that was standards-based, they initially said, 'No, we don't want to do that. It's too much work,' " Watanabe recalled. "But when they saw their final product, they just couldn't believe that they did all that work."
Standards became so much a part of student life that when they moved to the next grade -- which didn't implement standards-based learning -- the students asked, "Where are the standards?"Grading also becomes less subjective, Watanabe said, because students are graded against the standards and not against each other.
The school also made a point of calling a meeting to let parents know about their venture into standards. Some teachers needed convincing because they weren't sure standards-based education wasn't just another fad, said Watanabe, who became the school's literacy coordinator.
Honowai's way
At Honowai Elementary, 7-year-old Karen Fernandez knows what she needs to do to complete a final report on the cycles of nature in Marlene Tom's class."I myself am now more aware of it. When we do the unit, I'm real specific. We don't go out and do the real extraneous things that really are not necessary," Tom said.
Honowai used an ambitious plan to get the entire school on the standards track at the same time for consistency.
Young said the majority of students in his school come from low socioeconomic backgrounds that include immigrant children whose first language isn't English. "Our children have not been excelling in language arts. We wanted to find a way to raise our student achievement level."
Lisa Higa, literacy coordinator, said America's Choice has a strong reading and writing component.
Some schools have said it's been difficult to implement standards because they say they don't have enough time, money and classroom materials.
But Honowai showed that creativity can overcome these obstacles. The school rearranged its class schedule to give teachers more time for planning and it obtained grants to help teachers buy standards-based materials for the classroom.
Young said that although the new Hawaii Content and Performance Standards are a vast improvement over the old standards, his school would probably continue to use America's Choice as a guide.
The program is already paying off, he said.
For example, when he asked kindergarten teachers for thoughts on what to require for students at the end of the year, they mentioned recognition of letters and numbers.
But Young offered a more specific aim -- each student should be able to read and write their own sentence, paragraph or even a short story.
"At the end of school, I had one teacher come to me and say, 'Guess what, the kids can do it.'... Higher expectations with better teaching certainly bring better results."
Star-Bulletin writer Christine Donnelly contributed to this story.
Transition to new
By Crystal Kua
standards not so easy
Star-BulletinTHE introduction of standards-based education in Hawaii's public school classrooms has been slow since the adoption of the original Hawaii Content and Performance Standards nearly five years ago.
With the lack of a comprehensive plan to put standards in place statewide, schools -- like those visited last school year and profiled today -- have struggled to implement standards in their own way.
Many have used other national standards or models to link Hawaii's standards to classroom lessons.
State Superintendent Paul LeMahieu said the work schools have undertaken so far in implementing standards will not be lost with the new Hawaii Content and Performance Standards II, approved last night by the Board of Education. LeMahieu said from what he can see the main problems with the old standards were organization and presentation.
"If I'm right, here's the really good news: The basic stuff is going to change least of all," LeMahieu said. "Whatever work that has been invested in aligning curriculum and practice to those standards, that work will still stand up after the refinement. It's not wasted effort at all."
LeMahieu said that because the old document was difficult to work with, teachers and curriculum experts have struggled more than they had to.
"If the standards had been better organized ... easier to work with, that work would not have been as hard as it had to be."
Schools that have begun the task of implementing the standards are learning valuable lessons.
They are also finding that they need time, money, guidance, teaching materials and other resources to implement standards.
"Making Sense of Standards" is the Department of Education's guide to standards-based education and the refined Hawaii Content and Performance Standards and it provides answers to some frequently asked questions: Guide outlines reform objectives
Question: Why standards-based reform?
Answer: Standards-based reform grew from the common-sense notion that student effort and achievement are directly affected by the expectations we (teachers, parents, the community at large) have of them. Research and experience show us that raising expectations -- setting high standards -- helps our children learn more.
Q: What are the goals?
A: Or learner outcomes, as the guide calls them are:
Q: What do standards mean for schools?
A: Because standards state what students are expected to know and be able to do, they give schools:
Q: What do standards mean for teachers?
Teachers move from an emphasis on what is taught to an emphasis on what is learned.
Q: What do standards mean for students?
A: This means that all students:
Q: What happens to students who do not meet standards?
A: Many states, districts and schools provide more time tied with more appropriate instruction for those students. How this is being done varies. Some hold before- and after-school tutoring sessions; some have Saturday or holiday instructional sessions, others require summer school attendance; while still others use retention in grade.
What will Hawaii schools do? We know from research that neither social promotion nor simple retention is the solution. Within state guidelines and policies, schools must decide how best to assist these students and secure the resources to do so.
