Some 95,000 students this week will begin taking the Hawaii State Assessment, which measures whether public schools across the state are making significant progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Students will take the six-day exam during a testing window that lasts until April 18. The testing window officially began yesterday, but many schools aren't expected to begin testing until today or tomorrow, state Department of Education officials said.

Educational benchmarks continue to increase each year, and the percentage of students who must demonstrate proficiency this year has increased substantially, said Cara Tanimura, the head of the DOE's system planning and improvement section.

For schools to achieve "adequate yearly progress" under the federal mandate, 58 percent of students must be proficient in reading this year, compared with 44 percent required last year. And 46 percent of students must demonstrate proficiency in math, compared with 28 percent required last year.

"That is huge and it's going to be a challenge for many schools," Tanimura said.

No Child Left Behind requires that schools show increasing proficiency each year until 2014, when all students are expected to be proficient in core subjects. Schools that don't achieve adequate yearly progress, or AYP, for two consecutive years are subject to sanctions that include state intervention and replacement of school staff.

Last year, 184 of 282 Hawai'i public schools — or 65 percent — met expectations set under No Child Left Behind. A year before, only 100 schools achieved their AYP goals, according to DOE data.

While the stakes are high, Tanimura said, schools are attempting to keep kids focused on doing the best they can rather than feeling stressed.

"My daughter is going to take this test, and students do feel stressed. What we're telling students is, 'Do the best you can. You want to show all that you've learned,' " Tanimura said.

Last year, Lanakila Elementary School met its testing goal for the second year in a row, pulling it out of No Child sanctions, said principal Gerianne Lee.

This year, Lee said, teachers have been working to help students meet this year's tougher goals.

In addition to regularly assessing student progress through the school's own tests, teachers have also been performing day-to-day assessments and putting students into "intervention groups" if they need extra help, Lee said.

"We test three times a year ... and our teachers have been showing students, 'You were here and this is where you are now.' It gave the kids incentive to keep progressing," Lee said.

In addition, counselor Allison Higa said, teachers throughout the year have been integrating testing strategies into their regular lessons.

Grades three, four, five, six, seven, eight and 10 will be taking the Hawaii State Assessment. That means each student at Niu Valley Middle School will be examined when testing begins tomorrow at that school.

Niu Valley principal Justin Mew said test preparation is not as important as emphasizing that each student get enough rest and eat a healthy breakfast during test weeks.

"The students are prepared just based on the lessons teachers have been doing all along," Mew said.

Last year, Niu Valley initially did not make its goals set under No Child Left Behind. But after a final recount of a number of HSA test booklets suspected of possible scoring errors, it was determined that Niu Valley made its "adequate yearly progress."

Scoring errors on the state assessment were announced in October when officials discovered about 1,682 questionable booklets. The errors were found after some schools discovered that students who didn't take tests had incorrectly received scores.

Tanimura said that the DOE and its contracted testing company, American Institutes for Research, are taking measures to prevent a repeat of that scenario. American Institutes for Research has hired a different test scanning company following last year's recount.