Authors: Joseph Boven, Grace Cajski, Ben Cronkright
The Pacific East Comprehensive Center (Pacific East CC) is partnering with the Hawaiʻi State Public Charter School Commission and the Hawaiʻi Department of Education (HIDOE) to improve how schools evaluate student outcomes and program effectiveness. Together, the partners are identifying innovative assessment systems used in Hawaiʻi’s charter schools that capture the diversity of educational programs and learning approaches found across those schools, mapping those systems to valid evidence-based achievement metrics that substantiate their use; and identifying those innovative assessments that could be applied statewide.
Updating Assessment Regulations to Meet School Needs
Hawaiʻi’s public charter school system includes 40 schools, many of which were created by communities to meet specific local needs. These schools vary widely in their missions, instructional approaches, and definitions of student success. Some emphasize place-based education, some are “Hawaiian Culture Focused,” and others are designed around alternative learning models.
HIDOE uses the STRIVE – HI performance system to evaluate Hawaiʻi schools. This system is also used to evaluate charter schools under the Charter Contract Academic Performance Framework. However, the STRIVE measures have not always reflected the variety of educational approaches used by Charter School, leading charter schools to develop internal innovative assessment models to gauge student success in their programs.
To address these differences in evaluation and be responsive to local innovation, the Hawaiʻi State Public Charter School Commission adopted Charter Contract 4.1 in April 2026. This action revised the Academic Performance Framework, effective July 1, 2026. The Commission developed the revised framework in close consultation with impacted groups and partners, including PECC. Under the new framework, school-defined evidence tied to mission-aligned initiatives and school-specific academic proficiency measures will play a clearer role in evaluating school success.
Discovering and Validating Innovation
To support this shift, the Pacific East Comprehensive Center (CC) conducted a landscape scan of innovative assessment practices within charter schools in Hawaiʻi. They then developed a comparative brief and alignment map that connects the unique school practices gathered in the scan to quality criteria (assessment criteria that are backed by relevant research, academic scholars, and practitioner-experts) and applicable state and federal requirements, including criteria found in the Every Student Succeeds Act and STRIVE HI.
This validity-crosswalk is already helping HIDOE schools and the Commission better understand how mission-aligned, school-specific assessment evidence can demonstrate student learning, program quality, and school progress in ways that are both meaningful and accountable. In doing so, it is also offering new avenues for schools to use assessment tools that better demonstrate their success.
Potential Challenges Ahead
Of course, expanding the range of assessment options isn’t without likely challenges. During the Pacific East CC Advisory Board meeting, local advisors noted that schools sometimes default to standardized assessments simply because they’re familiar and lower-risk, even when a new, better-fitting assessment is available.
The advisory board further noted that schools are already often concerned about relaying information from assessments specific to their own school because those assessments are designed for particular purposes and may not be applicable outside that context. For example, a school might adopt a formative assessment tailored to its own curriculum and student population but if that data is later compared against schools using a different, standardized measure, the school could appear to be underperforming even though the two assessments aren’t measuring the same thing. Similarly, less understood innovative assessments that granularly look at student improvement data in context specific areas would not be applicable to broader system wide comparisons. As a result, many schools may be less inclined to administer new innovations for fear of being penalized.
These challenges are real. However, Pacific East CC, HIDOE, and the Charter School Commission believe that continued alignment mapping, paired with clear communication about which innovative and school-defined assessment practices meet quality criteria, will help evaluators better weigh assessment measures.
As this alignment mapping progresses, Pacific East CC, in coordination of HIDOE and the Commission, hopes that the innovative assessment practices already in use or development in Hawaiʻi charter schools can provide meaningful evidence of student learning, and serve as a key part of the broader statewide accountability framework.