OLYMPIA – Nearly three dozen school districts with large numbers of Hispanic students are asking lawmakers to delay a requirement that students pass the reading and writing sections of Washington’s high stakes test in order to graduate from high school.
As state law stands today, students in the class of 2008 would be the first group required to pass the math, writing and reading sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning in order to graduate.
Lawmakers have already voted to delay the math requirement from 2008 through 2012, provided the affected students take additional math courses.
And the requirement to pass the science WASL in order to graduate would be delayed from the class of 2010 to the class of 2013.
A letter signed by 35 district superintendents was sent earlier this week to encourage lawmakers to support an amendment that would delay the reading and writing requirement to the class of 2010.
Most of the school officials signing the letter were in Eastern Washington, but some were in such Western Washington areas as Everett and Mount Vernon.
Yakima School District Superintendent Benjamin Soria said about 300 members of his junior class are in danger of not graduating if the reading and writing requirement is not delayed.
“It’s a huge issue of equity,” Soria said. “I don’t know that we have successfully been able to convince the legislators the huge factor that poverty plays in how students perform.”
Sen. Jim Clements, R-Selah, tried to amend a bill Wednesday on math and science education to delay the reading and writing requirement. The amendment was ruled out of order because it did not directly relate to the bill, but Clements said afterward that something needs to be done.
According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 10,831 of this year’s high school juniors who have taken the test did not pass the reading portion, 11,718 haven’t passed writing and 32,855 haven’t passed math. The class includes 82,992 students, but not all students have taken all three sections of the test.
A high percentage of the students who have not passed are low income and speak English as a second language.
The Seattle teachers union, the Seattle Education Association, sent a letter last week urging lawmakers to set aside the entire WASL as a graduation requirement “until there is both the funding and the use of multiple measures that are necessary to treat all students equitably.”
That letter said the decision to delay math, but not reading and writing was a “story of institutional racism and institutional classism,” because a higher proportion of white students failed the math section, but a higher proportion of minority students failed reading and writing.
Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, and her House counterpart, Rep. Dave Quall, D-Mount Vernon, said Wednesday they sympathized with the groups.
McAuliffe called the superintendents’ letter a “bold and courageous first step.”
“I want to know if there are more school districts that would agree with this,” she said. “If people really think this is an issue, they need to call their legislators and let them know.”
McAuliffe and Quall have both supported measures that would delay the reading and writing requirements this session, but have run up against stiff political opposition from lawmakers who say the delay would give the appearance of lowering standards.
Gov. Chris Gregoire reiterated her long-standing stance Wednesday that only the math exam should be delayed, adding that she hadn’t seen the superintendents’ letter yet.
“I’m not putting off reading and writing,” she said.
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