Opinion Columnists

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   HAVE YOUR SAY Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 250 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Contact Carol MacPherson (cmacpherson@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3472).   Published: Wednesday, September 5, 2007 Misguided law masks real progress schools have made By John Burbank My son starts his last year at Ballard High School today. He is looking forward to cross country, the school newspaper, and, to some degree, academics. We know that he has gotten a good education at Ballard. But reading the paper I noticed that Ballard is once again on the list of "academically struggling" schools. It didn't make a lot of sense, until I read the fine print of the Leave No Child Behind law. This law slices and dices the student body until one sub-group emerges of students who aren't doing well. It could be kids in special ed, it could be new immigrants. But by requiring all categories of students to make progress, the Leave No Child Behind law effectively stigmatizes schools in which the vast majority of students are thriving. So it is with Ballard. Of the 27 student sub-groups, 23 made "adequate yearly progress," meaning they did better than the class before them on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. But four groups missed the mark, so the school has been placed into "needs improvement" status, even as more than 90 percent of students passed the WASL in reading, more than two-thirds in math, and more than 80 percent in writing, significantly outdistancing the state and district averages. That's how more than one out of every 10 schools is placed on the "needs improvement" list. In Snohomish County, 24 schools are the victims of this federally mandated, Bush-era gimmick. At Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, 90 percent of 10th-graders passed the reading and writing WASL (up from 60 percent eight years ago), and two-thirds passed the math (up from less than half in 1998). So the school is making progress, right? Wrong. Because 16 sub-groups improved and one did not, the whole school is placed on the "needs improvement" list. At Everett High School, only one third of 10th-graders passed the WASL for reading and writing in 1998. Now three out of four do. The percentage of kids passing the math WASL has doubled. Shouldn't the school and its students get some recognition for improvement? Guess not. Everett High School is again on the "needs improvement" list. While 15 of its student sub-groups made progress, six sub-groups didn't. So the law drags down the reputation of the whole school. Was this law developed to make parents and students lose faith in the public schools, even while those schools are improving? Is it a PR stunt to take down the fundamental foundation for democracy, and make us feel guilty about sending our kids to public school? Interestingly, even while private schools have to be certified by the state, their students don't have to take the WASL exams, and the stigma of "Leave All Children Behind" is left outside their classrooms. So it is up to us to look beyond the confounding data to find the truth about education in our state. Here are the basic numbers: In 1998 only half of 10th-graders passed the WASL in reading. This year, four out of five kids did. In 1998, two-thirds of 10th-graders failed the math test. Now more than half are passing that exam. In nine years, the percentage of 10th-graders passing the writing test has doubled from 40 to almost 85 percent. This good news holds up in rural areas, too. In Sequim, for example, more than four out of five 10th-graders are now passing the writing and reading exams. Over the past decade, the same trends are apparent for fourth graders, with the number of kids passing the reading test jumping from less than half to more than three out of four, the proportion of kids passing the math test almost tripling, and three out of five kids now passing the writing test. In seventh grade, the percentage of kids passing the math and writing tests has more than doubled. There is room for improvement, but our kids have come a long way. So when your kids start off for school this week, you too can look forward to their education in the coming nine months. They are making progress. And perhaps when they become decision-makers, they will know how to reward educational advancement, rather than creating a statistical nightmare that leaves all of us shaking our heads. John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org ), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.

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