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Report cards
to reflect emphasis
on standards
A new card will be tested
in selected schools in the
2001-2002 school yearBy Crystal Kua
LeMahieu and Lowell get good grades
Star-BulletinLetter grades would probably remain on high school report cards to satisfy college requirements while A's, B's, C's, D's and F's become optional for elementary school students.
A new report card is being designed to reflect the department's focus on standards, a member of the Student Progress Reporting Task Force told the Board of Education yesterday.
A prototype of the new report card is expected to be tested in selected schools in the 2001-2002 school year, and the new report card could be in place statewide beginning in fall 2002.
Surveys of schools and parents helped to come up with ideas on what kinds of information could be included.
"Some of them (parents) felt that the grading now is quite meaningless," said task force member Yvonne Hashizume, a Department of Education planning analyst.
The new report cards will likely tell parents whether their children met, exceeded or failed to meet the academic standards.
The report card would likely include space for teacher comments and a section telling parents and students ways they could help in improving student achievement.
The 25-member task force, formed earlier this year, is recommending that a uniform report card be devised but that it should still give schools the flexibility to add areas they deem important.
"If we do not look at student report cards, they will be in the way of teachers in classrooms trying to take the standards seriously," state schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu said.
One of the challenges will be to shift the emphasis of the report card from comparing students against other students to whether students accomplished standards, LeMahieu said. "It's a remarkable shift in the way we think about students, what they're capable of doing and how we're going to judge what they do."
Schools super,
librarian get
good marks
The Board of Education
By Crystal Kua
rates LeMahieu and
Lowell highly during its
evaluation sessions
Star-BulletinState schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu should be given a chance to continue his educational reform agenda after his current four-year contract runs out in two years, the chairman of the Board of Education says.
"I was part of the group that hired him. I don't have any desire for him, personally, to be terminated at the end of two years," Mitsugi Nakashima said last night. "Let's stay the course."
His comments came after the board evaluated LeMahieu's performance in a closed-door session and give him a "more than satisfactory" grade.
"It's a continued endorsement," LeMahieu said, noting that this is his fourth review since taking the post. "The board is continuing to express its satisfaction with and support for what we're doing."
In a separate closed-door evaluation, the board gave state Librarian Virginia Lowell a rating of "excellent."
"It sounds as if things are moving forward, and there's a lot of synergy that has been created, and they wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to carry that on," Lowell said after the grading.
Lowell said her first two years as head of the Hawaii State Public Library System were formative years, with work aimed at rebuilding the organization following years of budget cuts, controversy surrounding a contract with a mainland book-buying firm and other issues.
"There was a lot of internal stuff going on," Lowell said. "Now we're at a point ... where we'll be able to start showing things out there in the libraries, and people will see that something's happening."
Nakashima said the grades given the state librarian and superintendent showed they are on track with their respective goals. For LeMahieu the marks could translate into a higher salary because the Legislature this past session increased the salary cap for the superintendent from $90,041 to $150,000.
"We have to get to the salary restructuring for the superintendent. That's something we need to discuss," Nakashima said. "The question is going to be what kind of criteria, guidelines or standards we're going to build so that whatever we agree upon is not to be capricious."
Nakashima said he is running for reelection this year because he wants to be able to see the superintendent carry out his and the board's agenda. Seven of the 13 voting board members are up for re-election, and two other members are resigning midterm to run for other seats.
