What’s the true cost of the WASL?

Published 12:04 pm Thursday, June 26, 2008

I threw myself down the stairs; I jumped out of a tree a couple of times; I even crashed my bicycle into the family station wagon hoping that I’d injure myself badly enough to stay home from school.

It wasn’t that I wanted to watch cartoons or play with my toys. I only wanted to stay out of trouble, which, for some reason, I was never able to do from kindergarten through high school. My teachers wrote notes to my parents that I was disruptive. I’d spent so much time in the principal’s office by the time I was 8, the secretaries considered me a common criminal.

Finally, in sixth grade, my teacher suggested a medical explanation for my problems in school. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and medicated at the request of nearly every teacher and staff member at my elementary school. It should have been a turning point, but my struggles with tests, homework and other routine activities persisted. While the medication stopped me from bouncing off the walls, it didn’t improve my grades.

The school district’s learning specialists put me in a special education program — two hours every day for five years. But my grades never rose above a D average until halfway through my junior year in high school.

My problems had become more serious: I cut classes every day; I smoked; I drank; and I couldn’t have cared less about my future.

I was called out of class one day for evaluation by yet another learning specialist.

These meetings usually involved a day-long series of multiple-choice tests that were supposed to measure the severity of my learning disability, but this was different; there were no test booklets or Scantron sheets. The learning specialist — Ms. Dixon, a very tall black woman with a thick Texas accent — placed several puzzles on the table and directed me to solve them in so many minutes. She guided me through several interactive exercises, testing my skills in problem solving, reading and writing.

I was called out of class the next day to meet with her again, but this time my parents were there; my mom was crying.

Apparently, I’d tested off the charts in every area except reading comprehension.

“There’s nothing the matter with your brain, honey,” Ms. Dixon said. “You’re bored. That’s your problem.”

I was bored. It took a small army of teachers, doctors and learning specialists 10 years to figure out I wasn’t being challenged.

It’s why I initially supported the No Child Left Behind Act; I was one of the children left behind.

Then there were those sticky bits in the legislation about high stakes, standardized testing.

The premise: Teachers will be more accountable for student learning — their effectiveness as educators will be reflected in their students’ test scores. Some students — I was one of them — aren’t test takers; they have their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses.

But many states, including Washington, have tied standardized test scores to high school graduation.

We put enough pressure on our children to shine in the classroom and participate in community and extracurricular activities.

I’d rather spend my money bringing back art programs and exposing our children to literature than lining the pockets of test publishers.

What if the time and money we invest in standardized testing buys us a generation-worth of ordinary, unimaginative people?

Alexis Bacharach is editor of the Mill Creek Enterprise.