HMMMM.... Only Hawaii? I know. It's just me.

By Alexandre Da Silva
adasilva@starbulletin.com

Rescore needed for school tests
Student assessments are done so frequently that testing services cannot keep pace
STORY SUMMARY »
A testing firm picked by the state Department of Education last year to replace a mistake-prone company will review all the tests it scored for Hawaii this year after finding possible scoring errors in at least 1,682 test booklets.

The Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research says a scanning error by one of its contractors recorded answers in blank reading and math tests for last spring's Hawaii State Assessment.

Things That Make Me Go HMMMMM

The following story reminds me of circumstances at Title Guaranty. During my latter time there, when my complaint was active and shortly before I was terminated, there was a new hire.



His name was Wil Kahapea. On Title Guaranty's documents, he is listed as Asian Pacific Islander. On the EEOC documents, he is listed as Black. Is this the privilege of being "bi - racial"? I remember being told, by the headshake of a well known civil rights lawyer, that it is legal to claim either race when it suits the individual. This could FIX a myriad of administrative problems. I could only wonder it something similar transpired here.



....................................................................................
1 Hawaii schools avoid NCLB penalties By Loren Moreno


About 30 schools filed appeals said Robert McClelland, head of the Department of Education's Systems Accountability Office.



One of those schools, Wheeler Middle, succeeded in getting all No Child sanctions lifted, said principal Brenda Vierra-Chun.


Overall, Wheeler had met its AYP goals, with 76 percent of students proficient in reading and 28 percent proficient in math. However, initial results showed that the percentage of black students proficient in math had failed to reach the federal goal.

Vierra-Chun said she appealed after finding that some of the students were not counted appropriately.



While a school may achieve its campuswide goals in math and reading, it also is required to meet proficiency goals in subcategories such as disadvantaged students, students with limited English proficiency, and various ethnic groups.

If students are not grouped accurately, the test results can get skewed and result in a school not meeting AYP.



Appeals are generally based on whether students are grouped into appropriate categories, McClelland said.



Vierra-Chun said, "What alarmed me was when I saw that such a low percentage of our black students met AYP

"I started to look at individual student scores and found that a lot of our African-American kids were marked as Asian/Pacific Islander, she said.



After gathering the correct data, Vierra-Chun submitted them to the DOE.



This is not the first time that Wheeler has appealed its AYP status Last year, Vierra-Chun said, the school appealed based on the students being counted in the "disadvantaged" category.

Which Way Did They Go???

-- Hawaiian education goals not reached Wed Mar 26, 2008
The Government Accountability Office report said little is known about the impact of the $30 million-a-year program on Native Hawaiian education. Colin Kippen, executive director for the Native Ha... more...



Friday, July 20, 2007

Isle test scores rise
By Alexandre Da Silva / adasilva@starbulletin.com

Officials note that new standards were used this year
STORY SUMMARY »
For the first time in six years of testing, Hawaii public school students showed major gains in annual state math and reading exams, nearly doubling the number of schools meeting progress benchmarks set by the federal government.

Sixty percent of students tested in this spring's Hawaii State Assessment scored "proficient" in reading, up from 47 percent last year. In the math section, 38 percent of students were proficient, compared with 27 percent in the previous year.





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Hawaii below
average on SAT
But isle private school
students have outdone
their mainland peers



By Susan Essoyan
sessoyan@starbulletin.com
SAT scores for college-bound students in Hawaii's private, independent schools slipped this year but still far outpaced public school scores, which held steady or improved slightly over last year, according to data released today.

State Wide Monkey Business

Posted on: Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Wikipedia slurs traced to Hawaii state PCs


Hsrd to catch culprits

U of H

Guess this is why it was suggested that I seek asistance from the law studets at U of H.
Can't you see them in their new jobs. Thank GOD I didn't make that mistake.



Univ. of Hawai`i Law School: James Pietsch joined the law school in 1991 after teaching as an adjunct professor for several years. For the previous ten years he was the directing ...
www.hawaii.edu/.../faculty-staff/faculty-administration-profiles/faculty/james-h-pietsch/index.html - 20k




Honolulu Star-Bulletin ObituariesEventually, Pietsch and his partner formed Title Guaranty of Hawaii, ... and resolving conflicts that you find when you search,” James Pietsch said. ...
starbulletin.com/98/08/12/news/obits.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

Don't Fix The Problem, Just Fix The Solution

Isle educators defend improved test scores


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By Loren Moreno
Advertiser Staff Writer


OUT OF SANCTIONS

Here is a list of the 11 schools that exited federal No Child Left Behind sanctions after achieving their "adequate yearly progress" two years in a row.


Kalihi Elementary

Kalihi-Uka Elementary

Palolo Elementary

Lanakila Elementary

'Aiea Elementary

Hale Kula Elementary

Pu'ohala Elementary

Pa'ia Elementary

Kilohana Elementary

Kanu o ka 'Aina Public Charter School

Kula Aupuni Ni'ihau Public Charter School
Source: state Department of Education

ENTERED SANCTIONS

Two new schools entered sanctions following recent testing. A total of 48 schools are now in restructuring, the worst of the federal sanctions. Eighty-five schools need to meet their AYP goals another year to be out of sanctioning. The schools that entered sanctioning are:


August Ahrens Elementary

Pahoa Elementary
Source: state Department of Education

TEST RESULTS

School-by-school test scores may be viewed on the state DOE Web site at: http://doe.k12.hi.us/








Nearly a month after it was announced that 60 percent of Hawai'i's public schools had achieved "adequate yearly progress" under No Child Left Behind, additional data released this week show how individual schools performed on a revised test that some say erodes confidence in the results

Keeping It Real

You can’t champion equality for your own people when you tolerate discrimination against any people because of who they are. Freedom is indivisible. You cannot grant it to some and deny it to others. It is either for everybody or it is for nobody. -- Christine Chavez, UFW

Hawaii Department Of Education - No Child Left Behind, When They Know How To Steal Like Us.

State tax rebate? Not now and not with stolen money

The state collected so much tax money in 2005 and 2006 that the Hawaii Constitution requires a tax rebate. After the manini rebates of $1 per taxpayer in 1994 and 2002, this time the governor is talking about real money: $100 for low- and middle-income taxpayers. The wealthy -- those with household incomes over $100,000 -- will get $25.
Is it, as one commentator recently said, a situation where Hawaii's government leaders have ignored the concerns of real people, consistently demanding more than taxpayers should be forced to pay? Have they taken money unnecessarily from good, hard-working folks without good reason? Is this rebate overdue?

Consider the following:

» More than $45 million of the rebate represents money withheld from substitute and part-time teachers whom the Department of Education underpaid from 1997-2005 in violation of state law. Our rebate is their back wages. Should we take stolen money?