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2026 HSAP Virtual Assessment Conference
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Keynote Address: "Strength in Numbers": Assessment as Wayfinding
Tuesday September 15, 2026 8:30am - 9:30am HST
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For generations, Polynesian navigators crossed vast Pacific waters by reading signals--stars, swells, clouds, and birds--and acting through purpose, judgment, and collective wisdom. This keynote proposes that assessment works best the same way.

Andrew Ho, Harvard psychometrician and past president of the National Council on Measurement in Education, argues that we are all, to varying degrees, "weak to numbers." We treat test scores as more meaningful, more precise, and more permanent than they actually are. These three fallacies distort how students, parents, and teachers interpret test scores, turning compasses into verdicts, growth into destiny, and learning conversations into sorting mechanisms.

Professor Ho proposes that this weakness is not inevitable but a habit of mind that educators, families, and students can recognize, name, and overcome together. The path forward is what he calls "strength in numbers": using scores not as endpoints but as navigational signals that return agency to students, parents, teachers, and leaders as they navigate what comes next. Drawing on his frameworks for assessment purpose and his argument that "measurement must be qualitative, then quantitative, then qualitative again," Professor Ho identifies metaphors and techniques that enable us to use numbers to energize and guide rather than discourage and sort. He also addresses the emerging role of AI in assessment, not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a new tool for probing the meaning in scores and enriching the human conversations that follow.

This keynote invites Hawaiʻi educators and leaders to reclaim assessment as a fundamentally human act of wayfinding: purposeful, community-centered, and always charting the path forward.
Speakers
avatar for Tyler Belanga

Tyler Belanga

Test Development Specialist, HIDOE State Office - OSIP/AAB/Assessment Section
Tyler Belanga is a Test Development Specialist with the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education's Assessment Section, where his work focuses on balanced assessment systems, performance assessment design, and social studies item development. With a background as a middle school educator... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Ho

Andrew Ho

Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Andrew Ho is the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is a psychometrician whose research aims to improve the design, use, and interpretation of test scores in educational policy and practice. Ho is known for his research documenting... Read More →
avatar for Kelsie Pualoa

Kelsie Pualoa

ELA Test Development Specialist, HIDOE State Office - OSIP/AAB/Assessment Section
Kelsie Pualoa has served as the English Language Arts Test Development Specialist at the Hawai’i Department of Education since 2018. She leads the development and implementation of statewide assessments, ensuring compliance with federal policies and grant requirements. Kelsie specializes... Read More →
avatar for Lisa Watkins-Victorino

Lisa Watkins-Victorino

Director, HIDOE Assessment & Accountability

avatar for Temitayo Olaoye

Temitayo Olaoye

Test Development Specialist, HIDOE Assessment & Accountability Branch
Temitayo Olaoye is a seasoned education professional and test administrator with more than 15 years of experience in organizational systems management, English instruction, private academic tutoring, and large‑scale test administration. Her work has consistently centered on improving instructi... Read More →
Tuesday September 15, 2026 8:30am - 9:30am HST
  Keynote

Attendees (170)


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