Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 2, 1 February 2012 — OHA Legislative Package: 2 bills seek fairness in testing for immersion keiki [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA Legislative Package: 2 bills seek fairness in testing for immersion keiki

By Kekoa Enomoīo Parents and teachers are seeking more accuracy in testing of third- and fourthgrade Hawaiian-immersion students in puhlie schools -in a systemthey say is slanted against the students' favor. Meanwhile, OHA is pushing for a bill at the Legislature to address the issue involving the state's immersion students, whose schools provide instruction in Hawaiian to perpetuate a language that was considered to be nearly extinct 30 years ago. At the heart of the debate is that the students are assessed through an English-language test that is translated into Hawaiian, whieh ean lead to problems of translation and interpretation, among other things. "The translations were poorly done without a senior editor to oversee everything, so that there were many discrepancies and incorrectly translated items," said immersion teacher Kalae Akioka, whose son recently took the translated assessments. "The translated test makes the language awkward, and sometimes you need to force the translation for it to make sense." Senate Bill 2177 and its accompanying House Bill 1986 would require that the

assessments taken by third- and fourthgrade immersion students be developed from scratch in Hawaiian, rather than translated from English. Proponents of the bills say tests developed originally in the Hawaiian language more accurately assess immersion students' progress compared to translated tests. Under the bills, tests would be "developed originally in the Hawaiian language." The assessments are part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB. Revival of 'Aha Kauleo Longtime immersion educator Babā Yim of the University of Hawai'i

College of Education said a prevalent misconception is that members of the immersion community oppose the concept of assessments. On the

contrary, they want to assess effectively the

immersion programs and teachers, he said. "Everybody, throughout testimony to the Board of Education, indicated the experts say SEE TESTING ON PAGE 10

GOVERNANGE

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To restore pono and ea, Native Hawaiians will achieve self-gover-nanee, after whieh the assets of OHAwillhe transferred to the new governing entity.

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Būbō Yim

TESTING

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any test or assessment, onee translated from a language, becomes invalid. ... That's why we're not fighting assessments; we're fighting the formal (translated) assessments," said Yim, who also serves as a parent representative on 'Aha Kauleo Kaiapuni Hawai'i, a recently revived panel originally formed to advise the Board of Education on immersion matters. The long-dormant 'Aha Kauleo convened Jan. 21, when more than 50 immersion family and faculty members from various islands met for 9-1/2 hours on O'ahu to discuss a number of topics, including the proposed legislation. The 'Aha reflects the immersion community's desire to collaborate with the state Department of Education and to provide input in developing the assessments. In an emailed statement to Ka Wai Ola, Deputy Superintendent Ronn Nozoe said: "The Hawai'i State Department of Education is committed to providing a robust Hawaiian Language Immersion Program and Hawaiian Studies Program in our public schools. We will continue to dialogue and work closely with our students, parents, educators and community to ensure that we promote learning and achievement in the best interest of our students. In doing so, I am confident that by working together collaboratively we will be able to fully address current issues and concerns and, in doing so, meet the testing requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act." Language competencies Parents and other immersion stakeholders testified in support of HB 1986 at a Jan. 25 hearing at the Capitol before the House Hawaiian Affairs Committee chaired by Hawai'i Island Rep. Faye Hanohano (D-Puna, Pahoa, Hawaiian Acres, Kalapana).

Kaheleonalani Dukelow, an Assistant Professor of Hawaiian language and Hawaiian Studies at UH Maui College, has three ehil-

dren from grades 3 to 10 in the immersion program. "Hopefully when huge decisions have to be made on behalf of our program, people who are experts and who have worked in immersion are at the table to help make these decisions," she said. "When you think about indigenous language and education, we're in the top three (of indigenous language immersion programs worldwide). And to think the Department of Education would make decisions without consulting any experts we have is sort of ridiculous." Yim, the longtime immersion educator, called it inappropriate and unfair for the construct of the assessments to be shaped by individuals without necessary "language and cultural competencies." Besides, said Akioka, the immersion educator, "The United Nations and NCLB itself support a native people's rights to involvement in testing." Furthermore, a UH-Hilo Professor called the federal government to task for requiring No Child Left Behind assessments in English rather than Hawaiian for fifth-through 12th-grade immersion students. "The bill only addresses third and fourth grade," Dr. Pila Wilson said of SB 2177 and HB 1986. "The issue of testing through the language that is the medium of education goes into the other grades as well. The Hawai'i Department of Education has been able to get the U.S. Department of Education to allow it to test through Hawaiian in grades three and four under a provision of NCLB that assumes that they are attending a school that teaches its academic content through English. This is not true. These students learn aeademic content through Hawaiian, and in a number of schools through to grade 12. "The federal government has

placed a restriction on Hawai'i on determining its own official languages and languages of education by requiring testing through

English rather than Hawaiian," said Wilson, whose children graduated from a Hawaiianlanguage school. "It has done this discriminatorilv.

as Puerto Rico is allowed to test students attending school through Spanish - one of its two official languages - at all grade levels. "The whole issue is subjugating education through Hawaiian to education through English," he concluded. Dukelow, of 'Aha Kauleo, said her daughter, Wahinehula Ka'eo, is in a fifth-grade immersion class that takes the assessments in the English language, despite having

only 10 percent of her instruction in English and "90 percent of the curriculum in Hawaiian." Thus, "to conform with federal mandates, the test has almost nothing to do with what the immersion program is there to do." For Dukelow and others, assessments grounded in Hawaiian language and culture would benefit immersion youngsters. "It's supposed to be about stu-

dents and learning," she said. "For us, as a parent, they're (DOE officials) putting them being able to comply with federal mandates ... above my child's well-being. And my children's learning, that has beeome secondary." ■ Kekoa Enomolo is a retired copy editor and Staff Writer with The Maui News and former Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

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Dr. Pila Wilson