Test Scores For Hawaii Students Show Little Progress Despite Major Funding Boost

This article was originally published in Civil Beat.

Over the last three years, Maui Waena Intermediate has invested nearly $300,000 in Covid-19 relief funds in its after-school program, hiring more staff and adding new programs to help students recover academically and socially from the pandemic.

The Valley Isle school’s extracurricular offerings have been a big draw for students, and class attendance has been steadily improving.

“They’re more connected and they want to come to school,” said Jennifer Suzuki, Maui Waena’s media teacher and after-school coordinator.

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But while the increased after-school offerings may be drawing more kids to campus, the infusion of pandemic-era funding hasn’t achieved its primary goal: improving academic achievement. Only 26% of students at the school were proficient in math in the 2023-24 school year — the same as the year before, and a slight dip from the year before that.

Maui Waena’s struggles are reflective of a broader challenge in the state. Academic test scores in Hawaii have essentially flatlined for the last three years, despite an infusion of over $600 million in federal support to help schools address pandemic-era challenges, including learning loss.

Test scores released last month showed that 52% of Hawaii students were proficient in language arts last year, compared to 54% in the 2018-19 school year. Approximately 40% of students were proficient in math, down from 43% before the pandemic.

Advocates have been calling for years for the Hawaii Department of Education to provide greater detail about how schools are spending Covid relief funds. With funding ending this fall, a bigger concern is emerging over the lack of information about what the federal investment has achieved.

Principals say federal funds have supported student learning by enabling schools to purchase new curricula, hire more staff and expand access to tutoring and after-school programs. But there’s little information on what initiatives have resulted in the greatest student improvements, even though school leaders will likely need to convince lawmakers next year that the state should spend its own money to continue pandemic-era programs.

The DOE said in 2021 that it would fund a three-year study to assess how different strategies helped middle school students recover from the pandemic, but spokesperson Nanea Ching said the initiative hasn’t been started. She did not say if the department still plans to move forward with the study.

In some cases, it’s too early to tell which federal investments drove the greatest gains in student learning during the pandemic, said Ash Dhammani, a policy data analyst at the Georgetown University Edunomics Lab . The long-term effects of programs from the pandemic may also depend on whether schools can use state funding to replace federal funds, he added.

“It’s really important to highlight now, are we doing right by our students,” Dhammani said, “and did we do enough with this one-time money?”

Covid Funds Spent On Variety Of School Needs

Hawaii schools experienced a smaller drop in student achievement during the pandemic than most states, but it’s concerning that progress has stalled in recent years, said David Sun-Miyashiro, executive director of HawaiiKidsCAN.

Improving student achievement was already a major issue in Hawaii before the pandemic. In early 2020, former superintendent Christina Kishimoto called for over 90% of Hawaii students to achieve proficiency in math and reading by the end of the decade. Some educational advocates deemed her plan as overly ambitious but recognized that schools needed to progress at a faster rate.

A revised DOE plan calls for 65% of Hawaii students to achieve proficiency in reading and 50% in math by 2029.

In a Board of Education meeting last month, DOE Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Higashi said Hawaii is following a national pattern of states seeing small to no improvements in academics. Attendance remains a challenge for some Hawaii schools, she said, which also reduces students’ learning time. Roughly a quarter of students were chronically absent from school last year.

In the final round of federal Covid relief funding, DOE received over $412 million to spend between 2021 and 2024. The DOE had to spend at least a quarter of the funds to address learning loss and support after-school and summer programs, but school leaders received a large degree of freedom on how to spend the remaining dollars.

Compared to other states, Dhammani said, Hawaii has done a good job of publishing regular updates on the status of its federal funds, although the spending categories referenced in the monthly reports could be more detailed.

Some federal funds supported statewide initiatives, like free summer school classes, professional development for teachers and tutoring for middle school students. Complex areas also received nearly $170 million for individual school efforts to improve attendance and support academic and mental health needs.

For example, Kaneohe Elementary hired a social worker to support struggling families, while Keelikolani Middle School created an attendance arcade where students could play games before school and receive rewards for coming to class on time.

“The funds were like a godsend,” said Keelikolani Middle School Principal Joe Passantino. Since 2021, the school has surpassed its pre-pandemic state test scores in both math and reading.

But while principals say federal funds helped students recover from the effects of online learning, it’s been harder to track which strategies were most effective, especially when statewide academic progress has slowed in recent years.

For example, Sun-Miyashiro is interested in how the department funded tutoring programs during the pandemic and if schools were able to reach students who were struggling the most.

“It would be great to have data linked with activities and then be able to show how that had a meaningful impact,” Sun-Miyashiro said.

With so many different uses for federal relief funds, it’s hard to determine which programs have resulted in the greatest success, Deputy Superintendent of Academics Heidi Armstrong said. In some cases, she added, investments in initiatives like new reading curriculum or regular screeners for students’ academics and mental health can benefit schools even after the federal funds expire.

“It’s very difficult to separate each one of those to say, this is what got us back to pre-pandemic levels, because there’s so many factors involved,” Armstrong said. “We are working very diligently to ensure that we continue on this trajectory.”

What Happens When Pandmic Funds Run Out?

While tracking the impact of federal dollars has been difficult, school administrators say the funding has been critical in connecting students with additional staff and resources that didn’t exist before the pandemic. Some are now worried that they won’t be able to sustain vital programs unless the state steps in with additional support.

At Lanakila Elementary, math and reading scores have met or surpassed their pre-pandemic levels. Using federal relief funds, principal Kerry Higa hired five additional teachers who could provide more individualized support to students by working with them in small groups.

The additional staff positions alone can’t account for the improved scores, Higa said, but having more quality teachers on campus has gone a long way, especially as students struggled to communicate and express themselves as they returned to in-person learning.

But as federal funds expire this year, the school has been unable to keep one of its teachers on staff, Higa said. He’s worried that other statewide programs, like free summer school, could also come to an end and provide fewer opportunities for his students to learn outside of class.

DOE received just over $20 million from the Legislature to replace federal funds and support summer learning in 2025 but will need to request more money to sustain the program in the future. Over the past three years, DOE spent roughly $40 million in federal funding on summer programs.

The state may be able to fill in some funding gaps for programs like summer school and tutoring, Sun-Miyashiro said, but the department will need to make a strong case for continuing these initiatives during the 2025 legislative session.

Deborah Bond-Upson, president of Parents for Public Schools of Hawaii and interim director of the Hui for Excellence in Education, said she’s worried about what the end of federal funding could mean for students. But she’s interested in tracking how the pandemic-era investments in professional development and technology for schools will serve students in the coming years.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy .

Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Atherton Family Foundation , Swayne Family Fund of Hawaii Community Foundation, the Cooke Foundation and Papa Ola Lokahi .