Last week, the state Department of Education (DOE) released the results of its annual assessment tests for Hawaii’s public school students. The Strive HI report for the 2022-2023 academic year included no bombshell aberrations from last year’s data, but reveals several deep challenges.

The most important lesson in the data is that Hawaii’s students continue to need — and deserve — intensified efforts to remedy the learning and social losses suffered between spring 2020 and fall 2021, when school learning was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, closing classrooms, requiring distance learning and imposing unprecedented pressures on students, teachers and communities.

The DOE is revising its master plan for statewide education and this year set new priorities for action, which it must now aim for with all diligence. What must be top of mind is that there is no room for delay in serving students, who will continue to move through the system each year. Any student who “slips through the cracks” without receiving an adequate education represents a missed opportunity to lift an individual, a community and the state itself.

Strive HI’s data points show Hawaii is generally performing on par with states in its testing peer groups. But overall, the numbers aren’t where anyone should want them to be. While math proficiency statewide increased by two points, to 40%, that translates to 3 out of 5 students who are not capable in math. Language arts proficiency held steady at 52% — meaning nearly half of Hawaii’s public school students are not capable in English.

Statewide averages also obscure the fact that there are wide disparities in student achievement, from school to school, in different age categories and often, by demographics. The DOE is quite aware of this, and in May, its Board of Education approved a new 2023-2029 “implementation plan” in an effort to rev up student learning and achievement and move the needle more quickly in key areas.

Action items include the expansion of public prekindergarten, providing 24/7 access to online tutoring for eighth-grade students, a focus on workforce training, and, properly, added support for students in vulnerable populations, including Pacific Islander students. During this academic year, the DOE committed to setting “targets” for student achievement and well-being, which will be based in part on the report just issued. Next year, the public will have an opportunity to see how close Hawaii comes to these targets.

It’s clear already that high emphasis must be placed on raising achievement levels. The DOE has only a short remaining window, through 2024, to apply COVID recovery funds to this and other targets — and must take care to do so in the most effective ways.

The DOE must use Strive HI data to identify best practices within schools that are achieving good results, and apply them to other schools and classrooms with similar characteristics. Education advocates such as HawaiiKidsCAN have been consistent advocates for tutoring services as a way to close achievement gaps, and the DOE must vigorously pursue these for struggling students.

Another great challenge is addressing the deficit student absenteeism creates — primarily by leaving truant students bereft of an education, but also by depriving schools of student-based funding. It’s concerning that since the pandemic, elementary school students rather than older youth now have the highest levels of chronic absenteeism. That will require DOE officials to identify causes and communicate sensitively with parents, bringing kids back to class.

Teachers will be on the front lines of these necessary efforts, and the overall rise in pay for teachers this year should further motivate the essential efforts expected of them.

For all involved, from students’ families to philanthropic organizations, lesson one is understanding the urgency involved: in providing Hawaii’s youth with an education that will equip them to survive and thrive in this changing world.