You said it, JK. 

"Garbage in, garbage out." That's the DOE systems in a nutshell. Testing is a farce--the DOE Testing EOs keep changing the tests, and therefore ALL data over the past millions upon millions of dollars spent is apples and oranges comparison. 
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Kids hate the tests, and don't try. Who can blame them? The adults making the decisions about testing processes are so out of touch with what kids truly need that they have created a system that gathers data from unwilling participants to base "growth" on. Garbage in, garbage out.
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Is it HSA? Is it SBAC? Is it ACT? Is it Aspire? Is it STAR? What IS all this testing for anyway? Does it help kids, or is it just to show that the DOE Central Bureaucracy is capable of buying testing programs from the lowest bidder, and then gather some mismatched, irrelevant data to put on their website? Garbage in, garbage out.

It's your tax dollars at work, Hawaii. Another day in the Nei.