Education ‘Extremely Alarming’ Test Scores Show Challenges Ahead For Hawaii Schools … Education advocates say it will take “the entire community mobilizing” to get kids back on track after major setbacks during the pandemic.
The results are in. Hawaii’s public school students suffered dramatic drops in proficiency in core subjects in the nearly two years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, reflecting severe setbacks in academic progress ahead of the resumption of full in-person learning in August.
Only 50% of students who took the Smarter Balanced Assessments in the spring were proficient in language arts, which comprises reading comprehension and literacy, in 2021 compared with 54% in 2019. Only 32% of students were proficient in math in 2021 compared with 43% of students in 2019, while only 35% of students were proficient in science compared with 44% two years ago.
The decreases were even more stark among some Indigenous Pacific communities. Math proficiency among Micronesians, which include Marshallese, Pohnpeian and Chuukese students, dropped by more than half, from 15% in 2019 to 7% in the spring. Native Hawaiian students saw their math proficiency dip to 16% from 26% in 2019.
