The reading and mathematics questions currently on the Hawaii Item Release Website are items that were included in the Hawaii State Assessments from 2002 to 2006. All of these questions were originally written to reflect the HCPS II standards and benchmarks.
The American Institutes for Research (AIR), with input from the Hawaii Department of Education, identified items that match the new HCPS III standards and benchmarks. In some cases, the full intent of the HCPS III standards and benchmarks is not truly reflected because the questions were not originally developed to match the HCPS III standards.
To support more reliable scoring of the HCPS-III-based Hawaii State Assessment, the new test will use scoring rubrics written specifically for the items on the test. To provide an opportunity for Hawaii’s teachers and students to become more familiar with item-specific rubrics, AIR has written such rubrics for all of the constructed-response items on this website.
AIR will update this website with items that reflect the HCPS III standards and benchmarks periodically throughout this year and all of the following years of our contract with the Hawaii Department of Education. As the newer HCPS III questions are added to this site, we will replace those older questions (HCPS II) that imperfectly match the HCPS-III standards.