WASL
Test does not foretell future success
Carrie McAffee, in her recent letter, asked, “If you fail the 10th grade WASL do you really think you will get into a college?”
My answer to her is, yes.
My son failed the WASL in 2002. He is now in college earning good grades while some of his peers that passed the WASL are struggling. The WASL is not a test for college readiness and the integrated math that is taught to students to prepare for the WASL does not prepare them for the higher math skills that are needed.
College-bound students should focus on the SAT and we should toss integrated math. Parents should be fighting for the removal of WASL information on transcripts. Remember, private school and home school students will not have WASL information on their transcripts, so it gives public school students a disadvantage.
We need to be careful how much emphasis we put on the WASL as it may not be all it is cracked up to be.
PHYLLIS CLARK
Lynnwood
These are parents and children’s WASL rights
Being Grandparents that are fed up with our current education system of WASL-itis, we would like to inform all parents of your children’s WASL rights.
You have the right to view your student’s scored WASL test before WASL Summer School and August retakes.
School officials have 45 days, from the day they receive your request, to provide your student’s scored WASL for viewing. No excuses. If OSPI fails to send the scored test booklet to your school for your review within this time, then OSPI is in violation of federal law.
Why should you request to see your child’s test: Our state’s testing company, Pearson Education Measurement, is well-known for its errors in correctly correcting tests, just to name a few errors, 45,739 in Minnesota, 12,000 in Arizona, and in 1999 they had to re-score 204,000 here is Washington due to errors. Would you trust this company with your child’s future?
Our state’s superintendent would have parents trust WASL scores more than any other indicator of their children’s educational achievement, our children’s and grandchildren’s graduations hinge on passing this test. Pearson Education Measurement has proven itself and its scoring to be anything but infallible.
In addition, many parents that have viewed their child’s scored WASL have found errors. OSPI currently has no policy in place for re-scoring WASL test where errors have been found. I have a statement from OSPI that states, this spring a policy will be in place but parents will have to pay to have their child’s WASL re-scored.
Don’t take what the state is saying at face value, request to see your child’s WASL test. For more information please go to www.mothersagianstwasl.org.
CLAUDIA and DON HANSEN
Shoreline
It’s time to quit using an unreliable test
Carrie McAfee of Bothell posed a question to the readers concerning the WASL, “If you fail the 10th grade WASL do you really think you will get into a college?” Perhaps she is unaware of the fact that the WASL is neither an accurate measure of student achievement nor future success, which is why the state’s baccalaureate institutions do not use the WASL as a factor in entrance and the University of Washington has indicated that it has no plans to use the WASL as an entrance determination.
I know students who performed poorly on the WASL (even failing it) who have gone on to be quite successful in college and in life. My own son failed the WASL yet earned a 4.0 grade point average in college.
However, he was one of the fortunate ones; he graduated before 2008. Those student who are scheduled to graduate in 2008 or beyond may be denied the opportunity to graduate based on the results of a flawed, inaccurate, unreliable assessment tool.
Can students who fail the WASL succeed in college? Quite possibly, for many past WASL failures have done so. Will students in the class of 2008 and beyond be given the opportunity to graduate high school and move on to college if they fail the WASL? In this present system of things, it appears that right will be denied them. McAfee points out that our educational system with its lack of equity does not support our current 9th and 10th graders. I agree, but add that our current WASL system also fails to support our children in so many ways.
We need education for all students to be fully and fairly funded and we need to cease using an unreliable and inaccurate test when measuring student achievement.
BERTA PHILLIPS
Bothell
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