Former two-term Democratic governor of Washington Booth Gardner helped launch education reform in this state, which gave birth to the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. That's the crucial test now used to measure progress by schools and their students under the national No Child Left Behind Act. Washington high-schoolers will have to pass the 10th grade WASL to graduate 12th grade, starting in 2008, which already has Seattle Public Schools officials in a world of hurt. We should really be pressing for 11th and 12th grade WASLs too. Students will get a generous five tries on the WASL, but there are worries that won't be enough. Many are already failing in their initial tries, during the run-up to '08. And now Gardner - who earlier convened a partially-abandoned group to talk WASL alternatives - says in today's Seattle Times that things like work portfolios or - get this - completion of an auto mechanic's certification might be good graduation-requirement substitutes for WASL-impaired students. Sheesh. Back to school, Booth. And same to the Washington State PTA, and the Latino and Native American groups trying to dilute WASL standards.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 09, 2005 02:47 PM | Email ThisThat said, I don't think that would work under NCLB.
And all that said, the WASL is a bad test. Subjectivity=bad testing. Objectivity=good testing.
Posted by: Timothy on December 9, 2005 02:53 PM"And, he said, he realized that if the passing rate didn't go up — just 42 percent passed last spring — parents could revolt."
He assumes that the revolt will be that the test and standards are too high, rather than the education system being awful and a waste of tax dollars! You would think the response would be to improve education, but no, the Dems natural response - lower the standards.
Posted by: fred on December 9, 2005 02:58 PMTo democratize means to level out, to hopefully fill in the lows, and to absolutely raze the highs. (That sounded kind of poetic!) And that is the problem... a society must have the highs in order to thrive. If you eliminate the highs, you end up with, well, Seattle Public Schools.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 9, 2005 03:02 PMWhen it comes time to take the WASL the teachers push rote learning to make sure the students know the answers to the questions that will be asked. The concept of understanding the topic or even the usefullness of the information is lost.
On the other hand I've seen some real problems with teachers. Without some testing of student knowledge those problems don't come to light. Currently my youngest son is receiving an F in Washington State History. The sad part is that his grade is one of the highest in the class. This tells me the teacher is failing. I would not have know this if I had not asked.
I don't know what the right solution is. I only know that the current solution is flawed.
Here is Matt's biography from his own blog. There are some interesting tidbits in the 10th paragraph on his involvement in the Bergeson campaign. This might make for interesting discussion, if Matt wants to share his thoughts on Ms. Bergeson and her performance.
I'm not saying that Matt is the pot calling the kettle black, but I would like to see this web disentangled a bit more.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 9, 2005 03:21 PMThe WASL was pushed by business interests because they were sick and tired of hiring high school graduates who could not read, write, or do simple math. The WASL was designed to help business use a high school diploma as a hiring screening device without charges of racism, sexism, etc.
The problem is that most schools & the teachers' unions haven't made the necessary adjustments so that kids actually learn what they need to.
Soon there is going to be a huge class of central city and rural school children who have no high school diploma and no hope for getting family wage jobs, because they can't pass the WASL.
The crisis is actually quite ugly from a social standpoint. In their junior year many will take the practice-pre test and conclude they will never graduate. At that point some will drop out and others will just fill chairs. Those that don't pass the WASL, but understand the employment consequences or are so forced by their parents will then probably try to repeat a year of high school. There will not be space available for them in the low performing districts. You will have angry parents and a lot of folks with little hope for a good job.
When that day comes that passing the WASL is the only way to get a high school diploma one of two things will happen, (1) there will be a democratic party & civil rights groups condemnation of the teachers unions and schools (not likely!) or (2) Statements that the WASL is racist/sexist, ....ist and that all those politicians who helped pass it were in league with the devil.
Either way, the WASL is likely to split the Democratic Party (if they haven't done that already.)
Speaking of splitting the party, I would like to see all of the minority church pastors be reminded about how the Democratic Party was trying to sell anti-Christian car magnets. I think that the Democratic party is self destructing before our eyes.
Posted by: Bob on December 9, 2005 03:51 PMAnd by the way, most auto mechanics who have their own business make more than a physician, so go figure!
We need to stop worrying about the tests. Just raise expectations for every day class performance and testing, demand the best out of students, and they will achieve. However, that takes a highly skilled teacher. I don't mind paying commensurate wages for good instructors, but I balk at the stranglehold the union has on the schools in making it so difficult to get rid of underperforming teachers, undermining classroom discipline, and in directing so much money away from classrooms.
Posted by: katomar on December 9, 2005 04:17 PMOnly 42 percent of high school sophomores passed this test. That's pathetic. It's really no different than SAT and ACT tests. Those who test well graduate and get the choice scholarships. The other 58 percent get, well, not much.
My youngest is a junior this year and had to take the WASL. It will be a factor in admissions to a four-year university. She passed all four parts. She said that it wasn't that hard and feels so many didn't pass because they just don't care.
Posted by: cc on December 9, 2005 05:38 PMI know there are previous posts by other contributors here that might shed light on what OSPI has or hasn't done. Please feel free to offer any further views on that. One thing I did notice about Terry was that in '04, when the big push came for the modest charter school bill - the one that passed - she supported it, although she could have been more energetic about it. Of course, the WEA-sponsored Ref. 55 later erased the charter legislation, quite sadly. For many of us parents who have opted to live and raise our children in Seattle, a college-prep oriented charter is the only alternative to private schools right now, as SPS aren't viable. The more dodging of WASL I see from SPS and various other apoligists for mediocrity, the more discouraged I get about public schools. It's not as though WASL is the end of the story, or that the test is perfect, but it's an important tool for accountability. The parents, students, and "leaders" such as Gardner who are trying to undermine WASL provide a sad commentary on public education in our state, in my view.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg on December 9, 2005 05:49 PMBergeson has been more firm on maintaining the integrity of the WASL, such as it is, than I would have expected. But she has not been an effective leader. I would have expected her to fight the original WASL, if for no other reason than the cost of administering it. Instead she has behaved like a WASL cheerleader. She has not turned out to be much of a reformer, and I think a reformer is much needed.
I liked the idea of the WASL when it was proposed, before the Essential Learnings were defined and the before I learned about the problems with tests containing open ended questions. It takes about 1 week in the WASL (or WASL-like) scoring business to understand how subjective and how expensive the WASL is. Washington State needs to re-examine it's Essential Learnings and definitely find a better test format.
Many parents are concerned about the high stakes nature of exit testing. It has always been that way, but only the parents of 4-year college bound children have worried about it. We have democratized college, and we have sold the idea that every child has a right to attend college, and passing hurdles to gain admittance are evil.
If the entirety of families of public school children don't want to play the high stakes game, then the bar will have to be lowered. If that happens, then the whole certification exercize will have been a waste of time and money.
Perhaps the first step was the wrong step. Boeing and Microsoft should have continued to rely on their own HR departments to evaluate their job candidates. Expecting the state to certify the results of public education may have been too large a hurdle in Washington State.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 9, 2005 06:59 PMYour devotion to the WASL test is a mystery!
The test itself is terrible as an educational assessment. Prior to the WASL, there were several assessment tests given to students to measure their knowledge and skill levels. The SAT, ACT, ITBS tests were difficult yet - provided great assessments of individual student academic knowledge and skill level.
These were all scrapped for the disasterous WASL. Why? Why was the WASL, an incredibly flawed and subjective test, created to replace these traditional and reliable assessment tests?
Why do you insist on championing the flawed WASL -over the traditional tests?
I've been a parent in the public school system for over 25 years. I have 10 more years to go! I have seen my children tested using the traditional and the WASL tests. I have seen traditional curriculum (ie; math) change to "spiraling" math and "reform" math. I have seen bright children suddenly flat line in math after the transition to these new concepts! I have heard teachers complain in disgust about having to teach the reform math! I have heard teachers complain in anger about the WASL test!
If you pass the 10th Grade WASL test and transfer to a Texas highschool in your junior year, your new school will throw out your WASL test scores and make you take a "real" assessment test! The same with most colleges. It's embarrassing!
Combining the mind-scrambing "reform/spiral" math with the "subjective/how do I feel about this equation" WASL test - pretty much guarantees that our kids will be flipping burgers well into their adult lives!
You cannot possibly have children. No parent, in their right mind, who has the capacity to understand these educational disasters, would ever promote them!
Posted by: Deborah on December 9, 2005 10:41 PMWhere is Andy?
The big problem here is that few people will deny that girls tend to have better verbal (writing) skills than boys. So you would expect a test that emphasizes writing so heavily to favor the girls. And what do we see when we look at the WASL scores? Yup, a staggering gap between separating boys and girls, with the boys coming up short. They are about even on SAT's, but there is a gap in WASL's.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 10, 2005 12:01 AMIt's scary to think someone not able to pass that test is out having babies.
Regarding the writing skills. Which gender begins writing coherent sentences in a daily diary at a young age? Writing is a skill developed by using it. It's that simple.
Posted by: Andy on December 10, 2005 06:30 AMI read somewhere that Washington spends 40% of our state budget on education. A lot of those billions are going to State colleges and Universities. Our counties spend a lot of our property taxes on education. It isn't unreasonable to expect that the 10 grand or so spent on every student every year is used wisely.
Posted by: sgmmac on December 10, 2005 09:19 AMMy sister just finished her Master's of Ed. thesis. The topic: WASL standards. You should contact PLU (Tacoma, WA) and ask for a copy of it, or I can send you one (email me if you're interested).
She made some interesting findings, not the least of which is that teacher negativity towards the WASL only compounds the problem.
She started out against the WASL, as both of us have struggled with standardized testing in the past. But that quickly changed as she began to evaluate the evidence.
Now, to your mocking of the "auto-mechanic" alternative, you're treading on thin ice. I have a cousin who took vocational training after failing the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. He's a SPED student, meaning he's developmentally delayed (MMR).
He was able to get his Diploma and transition into a job, all thanks to WorkForce and his high school counselors. Without a diploma, he'd be just another demand on the welfare system. His case is only one of many, and is a good example, in my view, of why you need to re-think your phraseology--if not your position--on graduation standards.
Posted by: Patrick E. Bell on December 10, 2005 12:18 PMThe sophomore class this year must take and pass the WASL to graduate from high school in 2008. They will get their results in the fall of their junior year. They get 4 state-paid for opportuntities to take the WASL. After 2 failing tries, they are eligible for whatever alternatives (and yes, there should be alternatives but with high standards)OSPI creates. Want to know where your education dollars are going? It costs between $42-72 per student (depending on grade level) to give and score the WASL. By contrast the ITBS (which is admittedly a different test although used for decades throughout the US) costs $3 per student.
I have my own WASL story (and it's why I opt my kids out every year which, yes, you can do and the sky won't fall) but I won't go into it. Suffice to say, I believe the WASL is a expensive, overly-long (ask any elementary, middle, high school principal how long and disruptive the WASL testing period is at their school) and flawed testing instrument particularly in math. If they would go back to teaching the basics in math and not have it so writing based, the math scores would accurately reflect that kids can do well in math.
My best suggestion to parents who don't like the WASL is to opt out. If there were huge numbers of students not taking it, it would be reformed. Also, a little known fact about the WASL is that your freshman student can take the 10th grade WASL. It is a great advantage because you will know, by the fall of their sophomore year (not fall of junior year) how ready they are. If they pass any part of the WASL their freshman year, that counts as a pass for 10th grade. If they come up short (scoring a 1, the lowest score) on, say, math, then you as the parent will know what to focus on. Why wait until the fall of their junior year? Sure, some of the curriculum will not have been covered if they take it their freshman year but wouldn't you rather know sooner rather than later what subjects they need to work on?
Also, as far as usage in college admissions. First, no out of state college or university will ever use state assessments. Why? Because there are 50 of them, all completely different. No college admissions officer has time for that kind of detail. Second, UW admissions officers have told me they are taking a "wait and see" stance on the WASL to use for admission. Again, because they don't have separate admissions forms for in or out of state students and also because they need a baseline of at least 3-4 years of students taking and passing the WASL to see if it is valid. The scholarship issue, well, the WASL will be used but to even get into the running for the scholarships they are mentioning, a student has to have a 3.9+ GPA and a very high SAT score. The WASL is the least of the worries.
Last, you may start hearing from OSPI that it is "not legal" to opt out the WASL. I investigated this and it isn't under NCLB. It isn't under the WASL legislation. It vaguely is under the compulsory education law except that (1) it doesn't directly say that parents can't opt their students out of assessments (2)OSPI has no power of enforcement and (3) OSPI has been allowing (and even has a web page about parental opt-outs)opt-ing out for years, so why wouldn't they have said something years ago?
Opting out is the only way to reform WASL short of having reasonable alternatives. Ms Bergeson is beyond being a cheerleader (and I think she realizes her mistake but it's too late now) and won't listen to anyone.
Posted by: westello on December 10, 2005 12:22 PMLow scores and not passing are different things. Yes, some of us are poor at standardized tests but the result is binary. You either pass or you don't.
Some freaks love scoring high on standardized tests, but with that and 2 bucks you can leave a tip at Starbucks. Is the issue that too many of the questions are out of line or that there should be no standardized metric?
Remember, the test is less about your child, than it is a reflection of the schools performance.
The post is off the subject, which is the WASL and current efforts to weaken, it. Just for the record, though, Dan Evans is responsible for The Evergreen State College, not Booth Gardner. A topic for another day.
Posted by: jsa on December 10, 2005 03:16 PMAlso, the scoring industry is downright spooky. For some questions, they will start with 50 people scoring all problems in a test suite. After a few hundred scores, it becomes apparent that perhaps 25 of these "certified" scorers cannot score consistently, so they are banned from scoring that problem. Inconsistent scorers keep getting dropped, so that the bulk of the tests get scored by 5 or 6 scorers that for whatever reason, perhaps limited vocabulary, end up scoring the same way. Accuracy is traded off against repeatability. It really is a cruel joke.
Far better to go with a multiple choice, fill in the bubble kind of test for math, science, and reading. True, kids who are guessing will get it right 25% of the time, but you can account for that. It is much more difficult to account for the 25 to 50% who know a lot but didn't score any points because they were "off prompt."
From what I have observed of the WASL, it is easier for less bright kids to score as well as bright kids. I suspect that some in academia would consider this one of the advantages of the WASL. I think it is a mistake.
Again, the WASL should have exactly one section to measure a student's ability to write. The rest of the test should be designed to indicate ability in other areas without relying excessively on the ability to write.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 10, 2005 04:05 PMhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/wasl10.asp
Posted by: JDH on December 10, 2005 06:08 PMDid any one see on KING 5 News about 3 weeks ago when a parent viewed OSPI's web site that contained actual test questions from past 10th grade math WASLs? The parent was an engineer and found 7 errors out of 42 questions. Students were supposed to pick an answer from a multiple choice selection and then write about how they came up with the answer. The problem was, the correct answer was never one of the choices! Imagine how this would throw students off!!
Posted by: Sarah H on December 10, 2005 08:32 PMhttp://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/WASL/testquestion/2003/Gr10Math.pdf
Posted by: Deborah on December 11, 2005 12:47 AMThat is not what I am hearing from high school teachers who have spoken to college admissions offices. The WASL will not be THE deciding factor in admission but it will be A factor for this year and next.
I do know university professors are disappointed at the writing portion. They do not endorse the method these kids are learning to pass the WASL.
I am not a proponent of the WASL. I feel it is a waste of time and money.
Posted by: cc on December 11, 2005 10:40 AMObviously, this is not the entire math section of the WASL. In fact, please note that these are all fill in the bubble, multpiple choice questions. These questions are great for figuring you who knows math, and who does not, if you remember that an idiot taking random guesses will score about 25%.
The complete WASL is about half multiple choice and half open-ended "essay" questions. You have to do things like create graphs, and your choice of wording, and tick-mark spacing, etc. count against you. It is very, very difficult giving a blank page, and evaluating the quality of the product. It is "holistic."
Multiple choice questions are relatively fool-proof, and much less expensive.
As I said, thanks for providing this valuable information.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 11, 2005 10:59 AMI had the misconception that it was a dumbed down version of the SAT's.
None the less- I know several kids who made it half way through elementary school w/out being able to read. Shame on the parents for not reading w/ them at night, but at the same time, the quality has definately gone down. At the same time, my nephew who had a lot of foundation work by his parents, could read quite well before kindergarten is now a behavior problem (I'm guessing he's bored).
I certainly wish UW would publicly state what their policy/attitude is towards WASL. I took notes from my conversations with admissions officers at UW and they seem very reserved about using the WASL as an admissions criteria.
One other interesting thing that was in the PI's Sunday editorial about the WASL. They state that sophomores would get their results in June which is news to me. I'll have to check with OSPI; it seems like it would cost them more to get the scores back that fast.
Posted by: westello on December 12, 2005 08:54 AMI even lowered my expectations. I realized that my son's academic performance was beyond grade level, so I should just accept that he would not receive much attention. I figured he could work on social skills - making friends, paying attention in class, etc. Only later did I find out that he spent a lot of time in trouble for not being on task, and, instead of playing on the playground during recess, they were allowing him to go to the library and read to himself! He made one great friend - the librarian!
After fall conferences, we pulled him out. They had not even taken the time to assess his reading (even though they have a full-time Reading Readiness program and could easily have pulled him aside; they do this for the slower readers).
He is currently taking online classes. His language skills have improved further. That seems like a good thing, but it makes it very hard to figure out what to do with him educationally! One problem we have run into is that at his reading level many books contain adult subject matter. I pretty much have to read a book myself before I can hand it off to him.
It also affects his social life. I have read that kids who are advanced readers have more life experience (although it is vicarious!) than kids who do not read as much. He interacts better with older kids and adults than he does with kids his own age. I had requested that he be moved up a grade level, but the school would not allow this.
The school's view is that their prime directive is to make sure all children meet a minimum standard. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake. So, unless you have individual teachers who take an interest in your child, the child is left to drift.
As I said before, there was one teacher who was an absolute godsend! In a class of 30 students, she still managed to know each child and provide motivation and direction. I pointed this out to the principal, hoping it would earn this teacher some reward for her work and involvement. I was totally appalled when he stated that she was going above and beyond what she was contracted to do, and that because of that she was undermining the other teachers! I am only hoping she did not get chastised for it later!
She has since retired. I hope she got a nice retirement package because she actually earned it!
Posted by: Peggy U on December 12, 2005 09:23 AMhttp://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/12/11/100loc_a1wasl001.cfm
Posted by: Sarah H on December 12, 2005 01:44 PMAll of this was reported in the New York Times. I will have to go back and look up the date and title of the article if you are interested.
Here is a link to the Ohio story: http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=4236307
This story is weird. The company scored only 1600 tests, inadvertently failing 890 students. Why would there only be 1600 test takers?
According to A Guide to the Ohio Graduation Tests, Ohio does indeed have statewide testing. The state-wide test scoring was done by NCS Pearson as recently as two years ago, and probably still is.
So what is this test, a local graduation requirement of one school district?
Those poor Ohioans.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 13, 2005 08:56 AMTry this one: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051213/NEWS0102/512130333/-1/all
Posted by: Sarah H on December 13, 2005 09:17 AMIt contradicts my statement that NCS Pearson scored these tests. Pearson must have had the contract for 6th grade only. Seems kind of inefficient to contract with different test scoring companies for different grades, but perhaps that makes sense in the long term.
I really don't see this issue as much of a problem, other than that a mistake was made, and many students, parents, and administrators were stressed and inconvenienced. I think I would like to examine Ohio's proficienty requirements and compare it to Washington State's essential learnings.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 13, 2005 10:17 AMGirls tend to write better than boys.
Fine! Let the girls show better in WASL/Writing. It's theirs. They own it.
But must the boys also be penalized in WASL/Reading, WASL/Math, and WASL/Science? How many times should they lose points for not writing as well as girls, on average?
What about the boys civil rights? Do you not see my point? It's about the children... all the children.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 13, 2005 03:32 PMLet me reverese the argument - should the standards for the physcial tests firemen have to pass be lowered because, on average, women tend to be less capable physically than men? You seem to be advocating the standards for writing skills be lowered because boys don't do as well. Either good writing skills are important or they're not, regardless of who can demonstrate them and who can't. If boys, by nature, are not as good at this skill, then the right answer is to come up with ways to target their gender and focus more heavily on teaching that skill.
Peggy U,
Charts and graphs are certainly very useful and important in explaining technical subjects, but they can't stand alone. In every technical report and presentation I've been exposed to, words along with numbers and charts are needed as well. If the writer and/or presenter is poor at verbal/writing skills, the charts are not as effective as they could be. In addition, there are more aspects to a technical job then just technical things. Engineers, scientists, etc still have to write e-mails, proposals, letters, etc. that are part of their job, but not necessarily dealing with completely technical issues. If we are sending students out into the world without the foundation of solid writing and verbal skills, they are automatically handicapped regardless of how smart and capable they may be in math and science. You cannot separate them and I challenge anyone to present to me something technical that doesn't need some sort of verbage in addition to the numbers and figures to communicate the message.
I don't agree that math problems should be stated using words rather than numbers. But, I do feel that focusing more on writing skills (or call it communication skills ) is a good idea.
Posted by: LMK on December 14, 2005 12:34 PMPeople within a work environment serve in different capacities. My husband had one coworker who was terrible at conveying his thoughts verbally - and he compensated by associating with people he knew could understand his ideas and translate them to management and sales. He was a very inventive guy and a real asset to the company, in spite of his communication deficit. A WASL-type test would not have reflected his strengths. It might have even erroneously shown him as weak in certain areas.
I am not saying that there is no room for written work in math problems. I just don't think written explanations are necessarily better or deserve more points than those expressed using numbers, symbols or diagrams. The WASL favors the written explanation.
One time I had to help a 10-year-old boy (who spoke only Spanish) with a problem his teacher had given him. Not being fluent in Spanish, myself, I resorted to other means of communication (a diagram) that got the idea across and worked just fine!
Posted by: Peggy U on December 14, 2005 03:14 PM