Stop trying to weaken diploma requirement

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Making sure that high school graduates have the basic skills they’ll need to succeed in a competitive world is a commitment this state made 12 years ago. Now that it’s about to come to fruition, some in the Legislature are wavering.

Agreements forged just last year are under fire in the form of a Senate bill sponsored by education committee chair Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Bothell). The senator has long expressed concern that the Washington Assessment of Student Learning – which this year’s ninth-graders will have to pass before they can graduate – might not be a fair test for some students, particularly those with learning disabilities. Still, she voted along with overwhelming majorities last year in favor of House Bill 2195, which set the rules for WASL retakes (allowing up to four), allowed for an alternative that is comparable in rigor to the WASL, and made accommodations for special-needs and non-English-speaking students.

Now McAuliffe is proposing that students who fail the WASL just once can move on to the yet-to-be-created alternative assessment. HB 2195 requires students to take the WASL twice before allowing an alternative, the aim being to get students to take it seriously. Alternatives should be offered in very limited circumstances, because they won’t be as valid and reliable as the WASL. The suggestion that an alternative assessment is equal to the WASL doesn’t hold water.

McAuliffe’s bill (SB 5638) also eliminates the WASL score from student transcripts, as well as whether the graduation requirement was met by an alternative means. That would only weaken the motivation for students to do their best on the exam.

These changes would undermine the credibility of the assessment system that is at the heart of the state’s 12-year education reform effort. They also would unravel a broad compromise among lawmakers and various stakeholders that was two years in the making.

And, perhaps most notably, they ignore the results of the 2004 election, when WASL critic Judith Billings was resoundingly defeated by incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson, a steady proponent of the new graduation requirement.

We hope this isn’t a case of the Legislature being several steps behind voters, and that lawmakers will reject efforts to retreat from the state’s commitment to standards-based education. If the ability to measure whether standards are being met is rendered meaningless, years of effort will have been wasted and our high school graduates will be at a competitive disadvantage for years to come.

HB 2195 was a good compromise. It shouldn’t be scrapped. Students and educators are ill-served by being handed lower expectations before they even have a chance to show what they can achieve.