Here's how to help your child in this week's tests
Advertiser Staff
This is testing week in Hawai'i's public schools. Students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 are completing the annual Hawai'i State Assessment.
Some public schools are testing other grades as well.
State Department of Education officials are encouraging parents to help their children prepare for the tests by following these tips:
GOOD, BAD NEWS ON SENIORS' WORK
While high school seniors on average are taking more challenging courses and earning higher grades, they failed to produce gains on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress. On one hand, as reported in The Nation's Report Card: America's High School Graduates, 68 percent completed at least a standard curriculum in 2005, up from 59 percent in 2000, and the overall grade-point average was about one-third of a grade higher than in 1990.
On the other hand, the average 12th-grade reading score was the lowest since 1992, albeit not significantly different from the 2002 score. In mathematics, for which a new assessment was used that is not comparable to previous versions, fewer than one-quarter of high school seniors scored at or above proficient.
MEDIAN FAMILY INCOMES HIGHER FOR COLLEGE FROSH
College freshmen in 2005 reported median family incomes 60 percent higher than the national average, according to a report by UCLA's Cooperative Institutional Research Program. In 1971, incomes were 46 percent above the national average.
The findings are based on data collected since 1966 as part of the UCLA program's annual report on freshman attitudes, characteristics and behaviors.
Students who attend four-year private universities report higher median incomes than those at four-year public universities, but the gap is closing. Median parental incomes for students at private universities increased 15.7 percent, to $83,500 in inflation-adjusted dollars, from 1971 to 2006. For students at public universities, the incomes rose 17.1 percent, to $73,400, in inflation-adjusted dollars.
