Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian Students' Reading Achievement in Hawaii

• In Event: 25.046 - Large-Scale Assessments in International Settings: Methods and Practices

Abstract

The Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA) brings significant changes as well as opportunities for schools to improve their students’ academic outcomes. One proposed regulation is for states to analyze the performance of student subgroups separately in order to show how states are levelling the playing field over time to ensure educational equity. This study provides an analysis of the English language arts (ELA) Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) adopted in Hawaii. Using a multilevel framework that takes into account numerous predictors and the clustering of students within schools we show a statistically significant achievement gap between Native Hawaiian and white students, Pacific Islander and white students, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students.

Authors

• Malkeet Singh, Wake County Public School System

• Hugh H. Dunn, University of Hawaii