The Hawai'i Department of Education recently released preliminary statewide performance results for the yearly Hawai'i State Assessment, the test it uses to assess the proficiency in math and reading of Hawai'i's third- through 10th-grade public school students relative to state grade-level standards. After posting relatively little growth on the previous year's test, where reading scores were flat and math proficiency inched up only around three percentage points, Hawai'i students this year showed significant improvement in both subject areas, posting average gains of 13 percent in reading and 11 percent in math.

As appropriate, these gains were met with excitement, and those responsible received congratulations and copious acknowledgement for the work and dedication needed to produce them. However, others chose to receive these impressive gains with surprise and skepticism, even questioning whether the DOE had presented students with an easier test this year or otherwise "dumbed it down" so that students would score higher.

Over the past two years, Edison Schools has worked successfully with the Hawai'i Department of Education to help increase student achievement at 12 DOE schools on Maui and O'ahu that required restructuring after failing to meet state proficiency measures for five consecutive years under the federal No Child Left Behind statute. During this time, Edison has partnered intensively and comprehensively with state education officials, including the state superintendent and complex area superintendents as well as with principals, teachers and students.

The success of our partner schools, their teachers and students is the real measure of our success, and we are elated that their extremely strong performance on this year's test validates the hard work and dedication they have demonstrated all year.

That eight of 12 schools made "Adequate Yearly Progress" and five are in good standing does not in any way surprise us nor should it provoke skepticism. The scores simply and indisputably validate what we have been forecasting all year long.

Students at our 12 Hawai'i partner schools, like thousands of their peers across the country, participate monthly on Edison's benchmark assessment system.

Created to specifically align with Hawai'i's grade-level standards (Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards III) — the same standards tested on the high-stakes Hawai'i State Assessment — Edison benchmarks track student proficiency toward year-end grade-level reading and math standards. The assessment reports student proficiency down to the individual strand and skill level, quickly revealing areas of strength and areas where students are having difficulty.

In turn, they inform instruction and allow teachers and administrators to maximize teaching resources and target the specific, unique needs of their classes and individual students. For example, if a math teacher has recently taught measurement, the benchmark assessment will show in real time which students in his, or her, class mastered that skill and who is still struggling and might benefit from having the subject presented to them in a different way.

In addition to its obvious instructional benefits, the benchmark assessment has an ancillary benefit of being highly predictive. Experience with hundreds of schools nationally shows us that, after a year of historical data, which we now have for schools in Hawai'i, Edison's benchmark assessments predict with a high degree of accuracy student performance on high-stakes exams such as Hawai'i's HSA.

There were obvious differences in this year's HSA, stemming primarily from the fact that it was created by a new testing company — AIR — which tested the Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards III and not II. Nonetheless, except for the fact that it was appropriately aligned to the new Hawai'i standards, the Edison benchmark assessment was consistent.

If this year's HSA was vastly different than its predecessor, if it were designed to be "dumbed-down," easier, or in some way tampered with, such a discrepancy would logically and clearly show up when we compared the HSA results of our 12 partner schools with their performance on our highly predictive benchmark assessments.

On the contrary, rather than reveal any discrepancies, the striking similarities between the HSA results and our predictions based on benchmark performance of general trends and gains in specific subgroups and subject areas — even specific grade levels at specific schools — speak to the accuracy of the new AIR constructed test.

Our benchmark assessment predicted significant HSA gains at our partner schools in elementary reading and even larger gains in middle school reading. Our elementary reading scores improved an average of 9.67 percent and our average middle school reading scores improved by 16.7 percent. The benchmark performance of middle school math tracked low all year, a trend that was reflected by a 3.9 percent middle school growth in HSA math.

We were, in fact, extremely pleased with the elementary math gains we saw all year on our assessment, anticipating gains in the midteens. These same elementary schools improved their math proficiency an average of 16.4 percent on the HSA.

The assertion that the test was designed to be easier further breaks down when subgroup performance is examined. For example, while overall scores were flat, English language learners statewide improved on average in reading by 4 percent between the 2004-05 and the 2005-06 school year, but fell by 2 percent this year, a result wholly inconsistent with the 13 percent average, overall reading gain statewide.

For another example, the overall 13 percent reading gains at one of our elementary schools, while the English language learner subgroup improved by 20 percent in the same subject area, clearly bucks this trend.

If anything, such results speak to the individual accomplishments of each school and groups within those schools, the many reforms the Department of Education has implemented over the past few years, such as completely revising and simplifying its performance standards for the benefit of all and instituting wide-reaching initiatives toward standards-based instruction, and a growing, laser-like focus on student achievement.

That we live in skeptical times and that trust is at a premium goes without saying. But we would be remiss if, after Hawai'i schools have received so much criticism and negative judgment over the years, we failed to praise what they, and all those that work to educate the state's children, have accomplished this past year.

John Kreick is regional general manager of Hawai'i Edison Alliance. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.