Education Northwest conducted a quasi-experimental study focused on the effects of PLC’s Piha Pono interventions in all 10 of its project elementary schools, all which comprise larger percentages of Native Hawaiian students as well as students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (used as a proxy for high levels of poverty) than the average across all Hawaiʻi Department of Education Schools (HDOE). To obtain the program’s impact, Education Northwest evaluators employed a rigorous statistical analysis using longitudinal data from the HDOE. Education Northwest outlined the following findings:
Program schools increased their third graders’ performance by around a margin of 30% on average as compared to like schools that were not in the program.
The number of students in the program schools who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch was, on average, 30 percentage points higher than the state average, and the number of native Hawaiian students in the program schools was, on average, 36 percentage points higher than the state average. Students in program schools typically score lower than their non-program schools in all measures of the DIBELs assessments. Therefore, to measure the impact of the program, it is necessary to statistically control for students’ initial proficiency levels.
Students in program schools scored higher than students in non-program schools when other covariates and initial proficiency levels in the DIBELs assessments are taken into account. On average, the improvement corresponds to a 4.25 point advantage for participating students on their third grade reading HSA assessment.
Third-grade HSA reading scores for students who are in the program for four years tend to be higher than students who are in the program for fewer number of years. On average, a student gains a one point advantage for each year he or she participates in the program.
Based on the descriptive analysis above, we followed up with a statistical analysis and detected a statistical significant positive relationship between the number of years a student participates in the program and their scores on the HSA. In sum, the program has an effect both at the student- and school-levels on student reading achievement at the third grade.