The news is at least reassuring. Focused attention on Hawaii’s pandemic-related learning loss has led to a measurable academic improvement for the state’s public school students.
But the state Department of Education acknowledges that the annual Strive HI report on academic proficiency also shows that students are still lagging behind where they were before COVID-19 concerns led to statewide school closures and months of remote learning.
And that means there can be no let-up in continued efforts to reach out to students at risk.
The most concerning aspect in the 2021-22 report released last week was the spike in chronic absences. An alarming 37% of students missed 15 or more days of school, up from 19% the previous year. This was largely the result of COVID-19 quarantine and isolation requirements, according to the report (808ne.ws/StriveHI2022).
Despite that reason, there surely are other students who have drifted away from education, or are in danger of doing so. The department has protocols and must use them vigorously to ensure this group does not fall through the cracks.
More data is coming — the full National Assessment of Educational Progress is due next week — but there is reason to be encouraged now. Though there had been widespread concern that the initial plunge in proficiency would accelerate, last year’s return to the classroom full-time has arrested that slide.
During the 2020-21 school year, when classes were delivered online, student math proficiency dropped to 32%, according to the Strive HI report. Once remote classes ended in the last school year, however, it rose again to 38% — still 5 points below where it had been when last tested in 2018-19, but a marked recovery.
Similarly, science scores over the same time span had dropped from 44% to 35% and then bounced up to 40% in this most recent assessment; in English language arts, the pattern was 54% to 50% to 52% last school year.
David Sun-Miyashiro, executive director of HawaiiKidsCAN, a branch of the national nonprofit advocacy network, said that “from a big-picture perspective, my reaction was a pleasant surprise … the massive plunges didn’t come to pass.”
A narrower focus on this state suggested to Sun-Miyashiro that there were steps taken that had a positive effect. For example, summer school was made available free to all students, a policy he rightly proposes should be extended. He also applauded the efforts by some schools to make home visits during the pandemic as being productive efforts at outreach.
There are federal resources to tap. The DOE has spent about half of Hawaii’s allocation of $639.5 million in pandemic Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds.
But what is the plan for spending it most effectively? Some states — Colorado is one — have published publicly accessible guides to learning-loss strategies, and Hawaii should have one, too.
In releasing the new Strive HI proficiencies, state Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi credited success to “small-group instruction, intervention blocks, tutoring, out-of-school-time programs, academic coaching, personalized activities, and behavioral and social-emotional assessments.” The DOE should evaluate the varied approaches by school complexes and come up with an action plan, so best practices can be shared more widely and readily among the schools.
The DOE is working on a long-overdue strategic plan — the last one expired in 2020 — and presumably elements of that blueprint would deal with learning loss. But more immediately — in a presentation to state lawmakers, for example — the public should get a clearer view of the way forward.
Hawaii residents underwrite public education, through both state and federal taxes, and they want to see how that money is deployed to help students achieve and leave the COVID-19 quagmire behind.
