Some Snohomish County parents are steaming mad about the state’s WASL testing system, and on Monday will take their message directly to state schools superintendent Terry Bergeson, and also urge other parents to opt their children out of the test.
With this year’s round of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests starting on Tuesday for fourth-, seventh- and 10th-graders, the parents are trying to get the message out that they can legally refuse to have their children take the test.
"They are casting a vote," said Rachel DeBellis, a Marysville mother of three who will attend Monday’s rally in Olympia. "They’re saying this isn’t going to work. Take another look, please."
Such a move would hurt a school’s overall WASL score because an incomplete test counts as a zero score. There is no punishment for a student who doesn’t take the test.
Bergeson said the onus is on school districts to get their students to participate.
"If parents want to organize and do that, they can do some damage" to a district’s score, Bergeson said. "If somebody wants to jerk the system around, they can jerk the system around."
The parents plan to meet on the grounds of the Capitol in Olympia at 10:30 a.m. Monday and walk to Bergeson’s office to make their point.
They object to the high-stakes nature of the test, and say its ability to measure student performance is unproven.
There is a lot at stake. Federal sanctions are threatened under the 2001 No Child Left Behind law for schools that don’t show enough "adequate yearly progress," which is measured by standardized test scores.
Federal sanctions over several years could result in a loss of funding and students transferring out of the school. Eventually the school might have to be shut down.
In addition, starting in 2008 high school students will have to pass their WASL exams in order to graduate.
Pam Lewis has children in the Marysville School District and has already opted her seventh-grade son out of the coming test.
"The school’s not happy about it," Lewis said. "I’m hoping eventually the test will go away. Enough people will complain and voice their opinion and become better educated on what the test is about until finally it will just go away and won’t be an issue anymore."
Judy Parker, a spokeswoman for the Marysville School District, said parents should focus on the good things that come out of the WASL testing.
"It does help us as a district to know if our students are achieving and progressing at the state standard," she said. "It also is a good indicator — one of many — for students to know individually how they are achieving."
Parker acknowledged that if a flood of students opt out of the test it would be bad for the district.
"Indeed, that would have an impact on our overall scores," she said.
Michelle Derus, a Lake Stevens mother of four who also will join the protest on Monday, doesn’t think the WASL will simply disappear.
"I don’t have a problem with a test, but (with) this test," she said. "I realize we’ve spent all this money, so it’s probably not going to just go away, but it needs to be scaled back at least."
Derus wants to get the message to parents that they have options.
Some parents disagree with the testing but don’t that they have any options, she said.
"Usually, we talk to people and they say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know I had any control over my child’s education,’ which is a scary thought."
Reporter Victor Balta:
425-339-3455 or
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
