Hawaii - The Dumbest State?

[Jeffhale]

Most ignorant state. Yet for the lack of every comment to cite the difference, dumb and stupid adult community could be why the siblings are so incompetent. []

[Bullwinkle]

from the report - notice the other factors like health and gross output per state ----- its a deeply flawed article - it does not present how the data was reviewed and organised - no peer review as well - just more click bait to rile up the ignorant imho. I would not condemn an entire state because of an reported 8 point spread in IQ (long held to be a flawed metric)

Hawaii 95.6 2.5 0.036 15.1 0.003 2.7
Idaho 101.4 2.0 0.029 8.6 0.002 4.3
Illinois 99.9 8.1 0.039 0.3 0.006 5.0
Indiana 101.7 2.2 0.034 0.5 0.003 4.3
Iowa 103.2 2.4 0.034 14.5 0.003 6.3

more; North Dakota, for example, has a seemingly stellar score: 1791, about 300 points above the overall average. But just 134 North Dakotans in the Class of 2015 took the SAT; nearly all students in that state take the rival ACT exam. By contrast, the SAT average in Idaho is 1372. But nearly every graduate in Idaho this year — 17,695 in all — took the SAT.

the report shares Hawaii sat scores to be 1472 with 70 a percent sampling.....

edit sat scores

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

"This is a test ... This is only a test."

All tests contain bias. All tests are somewhat subjective. If you adjusted tests for cultural knowledge (in Vermont red denotes autumn, in Hawaii mango season) it would not be the same test, and people would complain that you're comparing apples and oranges. There are flaws to be found in any system of testing and the subsequent comparison of those scores.

Perhaps it's unfair to use the same scale to score students who studied for a test with those who didn't study? Wouldn't it be more accurate to separate out those test results? We wouldn't want the students who didn't study to have psychological trauma or low self-esteem when they do poorly.

What about those who operate outside the system, or think outside of the box? They wouldn't take the test at all. Some of them might be geniuses with a score of 0.

When I made my children finish their homework, they would remind me that "the guy who owns Wendy's Hamburgers only went through 4th grade." And I would remind them that everyone else who only finished 4th grade currently works at Wendy's. For minimum wage if they're lucky.

Do Hawaii students have the absolute lowest test scores in the nation? Maybe. We can argue about that. But shouldn't we instead argue about how Hawaii students can do better, rather than complain about a flawed test system or ranking system or whether it's more accurate for Hawaii to be called the stupidest state rather than the dumbest state?

[Justin]

It's interesting how most of the responses here have to do with the validity of the test, rather than how we might go about improving schools, providing more opportunities for good jobs, etc. I sincerely doubt the author went out of his way to blast Hawaii. And even if we could quibble with how the scores were calculated (which one can always do, no matter what), I also doubt that all of sudden Hawaii would go from #50 to something appreciably higher if the tests were administered differently.

So how would people suggest improving education or providing more of a "carrot" for students to do well in schools?

[Justin]

HOTPE, I was writing my response at the same time as you, apparently. Agree 100%.

[Bullwinkle]

See a correlation between connectivity and scores?

In my opinion its about the exposure to ideas not location that determines how well we respond to metrics decided on by the testing companies - thats all they measure - how many ideas the subject has been exposed to

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/intern...state.html

[Lodestone]

One factor is motivation. If a student resides in North Dakota, in a house on a treeless, windswept, frozen farm, he is acutely aware that if he does poorly in school, he is likely to grow old and die on same chunk of tundra. Plus, there IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO, really. Here, the surf is often up and the prospect of spending the rest of one's life fishing, surfing, swimming and snorkeling doesn't sound so bad. (It works for me, certainly!)

[Guest]

Our local public schools have just received some serious help on those S.A.T scores, 13 Million dollars worth.

http://khon2.com/2015/11/16/hawaii-recei...n-schools/

Not use to seeing keauu or pahoa schools as a state priority or receive such large amounts of money before.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

6.5% of the students at Keaau High busted for drugs.
5.3% of the students at Pahoa High & Intermediate arrested.

Can the story below from gypsy's link be true? If it is, the school administrators are covering up an even bigger problem:

The teacher told Always Investigating, “A kid got busted with it, with a sizable quantity of marijuana with him, and (the vice principal) took him into the office, asked him questions, asked him if he was selling it, and he said, ‘No, I’m not selling it.’ And (the vice principal) said, ‘Okay, what are you doing with it?’ And the kid said, ‘I’m trading it.’ ‘Well, what are you trading it for?’ He says, ‘Oh, I’m trading it for money.’ ‘Oh, well, alright.’ So the VP said well, that doesn’t count as a drug sale, so they didn’t report it as a drug sale.”

[shockwave rider]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

6.5% of the students at Keaau High busted for drugs.
5.3% of the students at Pahoa High & Intermediate arrested.

Can the story below from gypsy's link be true? If it is, the school administrators are covering up an even bigger problem:

The teacher told Always Investigating, “A kid got busted with it, with a sizable quantity of marijuana with him, and (the vice principal) took him into the office, asked him questions, asked him if he was selling it, and he said, ‘No, I’m not selling it.’ And (the vice principal) said, ‘Okay, what are you doing with it?’ And the kid said, ‘I’m trading it.’ ‘Well, what are you trading it for?’ He says, ‘Oh, I’m trading it for money.’ ‘Oh, well, alright.’ So the VP said well, that doesn’t count as a drug sale, so they didn’t report it as a drug sale.”

---

It wasn't clear from the article which school that teacher was talking about. Too bad the article was so poorly written and edited. For example, waring was used when quoting a counselor who I am sure said wearing. The teacher quotes are not differentiated by school, so it is impossible to tell what schools they work in, meaning that anyone not just looking for a vicarious thrill, but instead looking for real information, couldn't find out what happened where from reading the article.