Every profession has its own vocabulary, but the Hawaii Department of Education takes it to a whole new level.

The department’s new graduation policy depends a lot on “proficiency-based equivalents.”

But it’s worrisome when even the deputy superintendent has trouble explaining what that means.

When asked to define the term last week, Ronn Nozoe instead started talking about a “Common Core proficiency environment” that moves us “away from course titles and credits to a performance-based environment.”

“We want to focus on what we want our students to be able to do and be when they complete a course,” he added.

The department, in its , does no better.

It provided a scant few examples of “proficiency equivalents,” providing an explanation that doesn’t explain much: “Proficiency equivalents will be developed by the department based on the proficiency level of the standards.聽Only possibilities have been listed, none have been developed at this time.”

You’d think clarity would be important when we’re talking about graduation requirements affecting close to 190,000 kids 鈥� most of whom will become future residents of the state of Hawaii.

Attempts to define “proficiency equivalents” have birthed a litany of equally vague terms.

Here are a few:

• “21st-Century expectations” -Nozoe
• “More than just courses and content” -Nozoe
• “Integration” -Nozoe
• “Higher order problem-solving” -Nozoe
• “Demonstrating real-world skills” -Nozoe
• “Looking at outcomes rather than just courses” -Board Chairman Don Horner
• “Importance of what we want our students to be capable of doing when they graduate” -Board member Brian DeLima

Horner said “the key is that we’re moving toward that definition of equivalents,” tacitly acknowledging that we do not currently have a definition.

While Nozoe acknowledged all of this can be frustratingly difficult to understand, both he and Karen Lee of the lamented that members of the public are so hung up on discussing familiar concepts like credit numbers and course names.

“It’s unfortunate that the discussion is still kind of on the credits,” Nozoe said.

But when there’s no definition of “proficiency-based equivalents” and few examples, can you blame them?