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You take Running Start, Bart;

You take G-E-D, Lee.

There must be fifty ways to beat the WASL

You hop on the bus, Gus;

Make a new plan, Stan.

There must be fifty ways to beat the WASL

—apologies to Paul Simon

Since retiring from teaching in Bellingham, my cousin has been substituting in a variety of classrooms in a variety of schools. He’s noticing a commonality in lesson plans: Teaching the low to average students to get ready for the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) exam.

This emphasis on preparing for standardized exams means ignoring enrichment activities for the brightest students. That’s because schools are judged by what percentage of every subgroup in the school meets minimal standards.

We have many reputable schools which are in danger of losing money and students through the federal No Child Left Behind Act because too many students in some subgroup (English-as a-second-language students, mentally handicapped students, economically disadvantaged students, racial minorities etc.) don’t meet the minimum standards of the test.

A school is penalized if enough students in each group don’t meet the standards, even if it turns out many National Merit Scholars or students who score highly on Scholastic Aptitude or Advanced Placement tests.

My cousin suggests that students can skip the WASL by enrolling in Running Start classes, which allows them to take community-college classes at public expense and earn a two-year-college degree at the time they finish high school and transfer to a four-year college whether they have a high-school diploma (including a passing WASL score) or not. He also suggests that students can bypass high-school requirements, including the WASL, by working for a General Education Diploma (GED), again skipping the WASL.

I think tests like WASL are important because they force schools to prepare students to learn the rudiments of reading and math that we expect of high-school graduates. But, our state and federal governments should not label schools as “failing” if members of disadvantaged groups don’t meet the standards. Also, some of those standards are unrealistic. For example, the 10th-grade WASL assumes two years of high-school level math. I doubt that those courses are needed by non-college-bound students.

Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor