The tests so many love to hate mean more than ever this year.
Results from the spring Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests will be released on Wednesday.
But most eyes are on the year ahead, when passing the WASL tests becomes a hurdle to a diploma for incoming high school sophomores.
Rumblings over the high-stakes tests persist, and the state’s 76,000-member teachers union is among those promising to fight the graduation requirement.
But no one denies WASL’s status.
“It’s here to stay,” said Patricia Brown, who teaches at Monte Cristo Elementary School in Granite Falls.
Brown’s third-graders will be among the children tested for the first time in the spring as part of WASL’s expanding reach. Federal law requires states this year to start testing children in reading and math annually from the third through eighth grades.
Teachers and administrators say that brings added pressure, though they look forward to being better able to track student progress from year to year.
A new state law that requires teenagers to pass the reading, writing and math portions of the 10th-grade WASL is drawing even more fire.
This year’s sophomores, the class of 2008, are the first to face the gantlet. In addition, the class of 2006 will be the first to have WASL scores posted on their transcripts. And universities are ponying up new scholarship dollars for graduates who do well on the state tests.
Still to come is an alternative assessment and appeals process for students who fail one or more of the tests.
Students will have up to five chances to pass any of the three sections, and they must make at least two attempts before they can take an alternative test.
The state has yet to decide what those alternative tests will be, but has narrowed the options from four to two: a blend of WASL scores and grades in related classes, or a portfolio demonstrating aptitude.
A report by a University of Oregon team on the options – which included end-of-course exams and juried assessments – is due by September.
Washington state educators caution that any alternative test would have to be just as rigorous as the related WASL test. They will be aimed at students who have the knowledge but for some reason shut down when given a test.
“It’s not an easy out for students,” said Greg Hall, assistant superintendent for assessment and research with the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The Washington Education Association, the state teachers union, believes such alternative tests should be available to all students, not just those who fail the WASL, spokesman Rich Wood said. The union hopes to sway lawmakers.
“This year, there’s going to be a higher level of awareness of the WASL than ever before, and parents in particular are going to be concerned,” Wood said.
The WASL tests also will be a hot topic for the Washington State PTA, predicted Mike LaRosa, a regional leader.
LaRosa’s two children do well on the state exams, and he’s not biting his nails as he waits for their fifth- and seventh-grade WASL reports to arrive.
Still, the Marysville father said it’s not fair to require every student to pass the high school WASL tests in order to graduate.
The WASL “is a fine way to measure what the school’s doing more than what the kid is doing, which is what it was originally intended to do,” LaRosa said.
The WASL has changed classrooms, requiring students to learn more and different things that better prepare them for today’s work world, such as thinking critically and explaining their work, school leaders say.
“It was something we only demanded of the highly capable kids. Now it’s the standard for everybody,” said Paula Koehler, executive director of curriculum in the Snohomish School District.
In the WASL’s eight years, overall scores have increased, particularly in reading. But there’s a long way to go.
Scores may be higher, but half of the state’s middle- and high-school students in 2004 still failed the WASL math tests.
Teachers say guidance from the state is getting better, but the pressure to perform on the WASL tests seems to outweigh other indications of a successful classroom.
“It’s the abuse of the results, like judging a teacher solely on their test scores,” said Brown, the Monte Cristo Elementary School teacher.
Business leaders who have pushed for more accountability since the mid-’90s say the state can’t back down now.
“Whether or not (the WASL) has demonstrated its effectiveness yet, I think it’s still too new to rate,” said Carol Nelson, president of Cascade Financial Corp. in Everett and a board member of the Partnership for Learning, a group that promotes the WASL tests as an educational standard. “But it’s important to stay the course and not lower standards, and let the tool do its work.”
Chad Yarbrough, 15, said he failed to pass the reading test on his seventh-grade WASL by a hair, but he isn’t worried as he prepares for his sophomore year at Cascade High School in Everett.
“I think I’ll do fine if I just try hard,” Chad said. “Most (of my friends) aren’t worried about it. The only thing they don’t want to do is sit there and take a test for that long.”
The graduation requirement puts pressure on teens, said Lisa Yarbrough, Chad’s mother.
“But at the same time, I’m glad there are some guidelines that they have to do a certain degree of stuff to get there,” Yarbrough said. “That’s the whole point – to go there to learn.”
Most teenagers should be able to pass the 10th-grade WASL, said Hall, the state’s testing chief.
The score needed to pass in 2004 was 36 out of 52 possible points in reading, and 42 out of 65 possible points in math – the equivalent of a “D” letter grade.
In a recent meeting with reporters, Hall showed a question used on a past 10th-grade WASL math test. It fell in the middle range of questions – the kind a student is expected to know to meet the standard.
The item showed four boxes and listed their dimensions, then asked students to order them from least to greatest volume – a simple calculation of length times width times height.
Of the students who passed the math test, half got the multiple-choice question right.
“This is not mastery,” Hall said. “You don’t have to ace this test.”
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@ heraldnet.com.
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