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Move over, Don't get too comfy with the look of the school-by-school test scores published today, because things likely will change next year.
SAT, there’s a
new test in town
This spring, Hawaii plans to
augment the SAT with a
skills test of its ownA look at isle schools' SAT scores.
By Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin"We'll see a new kind of report, we'll talk about a new kind of information," said Paul LeMahieu, state superintendent of schools.
That's because the state will administer the first full-fledged assessment in reading, writing and math this spring to test how well students have met academic standards.
"We'll start to talk about a proportion of children who meet the standards now and that's a more absolute kind of judgement about how many kids are doing well enough," LeMahieu said.
But with a possible teacher's strike looming over the public schools, education-testing officials are crossing their fingers that the test will go off without a hitch -- or go off at all.
"Knock on wood," said Michael Heim, director of the Department of Education's Planning and Evaluation Branch, which oversees test development.
The results appearing today are from the shortened ninth edition of the Stanford Achievement Test in math and reading, which Hawaii students in grades 3, 5, 8 and 10 took during the last school year in May.
The overall statewide results were reported in October and showed that isle children across the board made gains in test scores.
Last month, the department also sent out information on individual schools that did exceptionally well on the test.
The school-by-school results in past years were released at the same time as the overall results, but this year school-by-school results came out later than normal -- it's usually released by December of each year -- for a couple of reasons.
Heim said last year's SAT-9 was given as part of a trial run of the standards test.
As a result, test developers were busy concentrating on getting data from that field test analyzed before they turned their attention to finalizing the school-by-school SAT results.
"Our primary attention was on the field test for standards," Heim said.
Another reason why it took longer is because the department had to fulfill federal requirements that involve the tedious process of identifying each student who doesn't take the test.
"We're now obliged to track very carefully who's being tested and who's not -- and if not, why not," Heim said. Hawaii's rate of participation is 95 percent, he said.
The SAT-9, which compares Hawaii students with students nationwide, will still be given as part of the larger standards assessment.
"It won't be seen in this particular format, but they'll still have the same data, that and much more," Heim said.
The "much more" part will test students on the standards in reading, math and writing.
"To say that you're average really doesn't help if the average child really can't read very well to follow the newspaper," LeMahieu said.
"So in addition to finding out whether or not you're average, those of us who are trying to raise standards think it's increasingly important to say 'you're doing well enough to read this newspaper, you're doing well enough to write this kind of essay.' "
This results of the test given this spring will be used as a baseline to gauge student progress in future tests.
Schools will be held accountable for student achievement through a system of rewards, assistance and sanctions, which also is still under development.
The standards assessment is designed to test students on what they're learning in school.
"You're testing exactly what you say you want people to be studying and learning," LeMahieu said.
The test will be less "drill and practice and memory recall and more on working with knowledge, experimentation, inquiry, making inferences, making judgments, justifying judgments."
LeMahieu said there is a "very real concern" about the impact of a possible teachers strike will have on whether the test gets off the ground this year.
The test is going to be given in April but a strike could happen as early as late March, which is after a 60-day cooling-off period expires in stalled contract talks with the Hawaii State Teachers Association and the state.
"(The strike) could affect (the test) as greatly as to say it's not going to be given," LeMahieu said.