Washington Assessment of Student Learning

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The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) is a standards-based assessment (not to be confused with a standardized test) which is one of a number of high school graduation examinations adopted by many states as part of the standards-based education reform movement.

The concept of the WASL and the 1993 Education Reform legislation was originally designed by the National Center on Education (NCEE) and Economy led by Marc Tucker whose organization had designed reform efforts of states and districts covering over half of all students nationally by the early 1990s.

The test is used in the state of Washington. Students in third through eighth grade, in Washington's public schools take the WASL reading and mathematics sections. In addition, fifth and eighth graders are required to take the science section, and fourth and seventh graders also take the writing section. Tenth graders are tested in all four sections. For the Class of 2008 and beyond, the WASL is a graduation requirement.

The state-level WASL assessment includes multiple-choice, short-answer, essay, and problem solving tasks. Students with special needs are accommodated in the normal way by the provision of additional time, special equipment or tests in different formats. The WASL appears to have been designed to invert every criticism of standardized tests, but in fact bring new problems. Standardized tests were introduced to measure ability of very large populations at a low cost. WASL is based on the Authentic Assessment movement. Many educators laud such tests for teaching purposes, but they warn they are not practical for large scale assessment; even the test notes for WASL warn that such scores should not be used for high stakes purposes such as grade promotion or graduation, which is exactly what legislators have passed into law. Multiple choice questions cost only a couple of dollars to score, compared to 30 to 40 dollars for manually scored tests. Machine scored items have only one correct answer, while agreement of barely over 55 percent on a 4-point range is considered to be accurate for the WASL. The Partnership for Learning says that WASL was developed and scored by teachers, but scorers only need a bachelors degree and a few days of training to score these tests.

Contents 1 Initial Concept 1.1 Controversy 1.2 2006 Results 1.3 High Minority Failure Rates 2 Notes 3 External links

[edit] Initial Concept

The NCEE in the late 1980s proposed an education reform model based on "world class standards". Students would be taught according to new process-base "higher order thinking" skills rather than be taught facts as has been done traditionally. Public education would become a part of a seamless human resources system where school would lead into work. Rather than passing students through based on age and participation, which many business leaders claimed led to Graduates who cannot read their diplomas^[1], "learning outcomes" would result in earning a Certificate of Initial Mastery by grade 10 which would effectively replace the high school diploma.

Under outcome-based education, it was predicted that All Will Succeed. Students who received their CIM would be eligible to continue two years of high school in a career track of choice. This was loosely modeled on the European apprenticeship system where only a very few students go on to 4-year colleges, and most students end their formal education by grade 10. The difference in the NCEE model is assuming that most Americans wanted the 10 year education/labor training system from Europe, rather than the 4-year college model which even most Germans opt for today. The original model would also have created a federal standard for all eight job categories, and effectively require a WASL test for each of those job categories in order to get a high paying job.

Since then, every state has moved away from NCEE, now claiming that the AIMS, MCAS, XYZPDQ is a "local" idea, created by leaders from business, educators, and parents who demand a "meaningful diploma". Every state has also struck down the concept of the CIM as being a bad idea, instead adopting the equivalent idea of requiring all 12 graders to have passed a 10th grade test which is designed to fail at least 50% of students at the start, but pass over 95% at the end of "reform".

[edit] Controversy

The assessment has become a controversial topic in Washington and many parents' groups have protested against it, claiming unreasonable expectations and unusual questions, and also disputing the fact that severely learning-disabled students are required to take the test.

The WASL's mathematics section has received intense scrutiny. The Essential Academic Learning Requirements curriculum framework was based largely on the controversial NCTM standards which elevated content-independent problem solving and invented arithmetic methods over teaching one correct method to achieve one right answer, and even published papers by researchers such as Constance Kamii in their yearbooks advocating that teaching traditional arithmetic methods was harmful to learning.

The first set of sample problems published in 1997 for the 4th grade contained problems involving unusually advanced material, often taught in the 7th grade, including skills such as indirect measurement, similar triangles, proportionality, and independent probability. The WASL promotes the new standards-based mathematics, which often removes instruction of concepts such as carry, average, and long division in texts such as "Investigations", but adds median and mode, and requires drawing labeled pie charts from data. The goal stated by OSPI was to have 80% passing, yet in 1997 not even Somerset elementary, one of the very highest scoring elementary schools, met this goal.^[2] In some cases, the passing standard for all schools was set higher than the best schools. The Partnership For Learning claimed that the 10th grade WASL only requires 8th grade level math, but many samples require mastering algebra, a topic some students will not take until college.

Currently, a large percentage of the student body does not pass one or more sections of the WASL, which many claim exerts too much pressure on teachers to focus on teaching the subject in the test rather than the class curriculum.

There are also concerns that teachers monitor students too closely during test administration. In May, 2005, a fourth grader was suspended for five days after declining to answer a creative writing question when the teacher noticed he had left the space blank and asked him to fill it out. Leaving the answer blank resulted in a lower test score, which affected the school's overall score. The principal suspended the student, but the superintendent immediately apologized and sought to revoke the suspension.[4] Currently, teachers are not allowed to check over students' work at all.

Scores on the WASL can be highly variable. Many students who read at or above the college level (some in honor programs or Advanced Placement classes) have been given failing scores in the reading portion of the WASL. However, other students who have learning disabilities and read several years below grade level have received passing grades on the reading section^{[citation needed]}. Student Learning Plans based on WASL scores in such cases will require college level readers to take remedial reading classes, while offering no support to those reading below grade level.

Another criticism is that the pass rate for the WASL test is low. Only 34% in 2003 and 39% (about 48,000 students) in 2004 passed all sections of the WASL. Students who fail the WASL can retake any section up to 5 times, or complete a different assignment in order to graduate.

State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle questioned whether it is fair to require students to pass the WASL to graduate. The Washington Education Association also opposes using the WASL to deny opportunities to students.

[edit] 2006 Results

About one in two tenth graders did not pass all of the section of the WASL needed to graduate with a diploma in two years. Scores also fell across the board in certain grades, leading some to question whether there was a problem with the scoring since this change appeared many different schools and districts. The president of the Washington Education Association teacher's union pointed to the very high failure rate as being unacceptable, and a reason to drop the WASL requirement for graduation. Superintendent Terry Bergeson responded, saying that it would be a mistake to turn back on the commitment to graduate all students at a high standard.

A Sept 2006 investigation by the Snohomish county journal found that the WASL was based on work by Robert Carkhuff, a self-published Washington OSPI contractor who wrote about "co-processing with God". He has had a decades-long professional relationship with key OSPI staff members Terry Bergeson and Shirley McCune. Documents show he was paid more than $1 million to restructure Washington state education around his thinking systems.^[3] The investigation concluded that several of the fundamental assumptions such as the level of math, and the writing and explanation content of the mathematics problems are severely flawed, not simply a matter of "helping struggling" students to fulfill Terry Bergeson's pledge that all students will get a diploma by denying them to all students who do not pass a WASL that most students fail.

[edit] High Minority Failure Rates

Compared to the half of most students, an overwhelming majority of nearly three-quarters of the state's African American and Latino students who took the 10th-grade WASL failed at least one the subjects needed to graduate. Two-thirds of Native Americans were also on track to have their diplomas revoke, and 70 percent of students living in poverty, mostly white and Asian. ^[4] Although research has shown an achievement gap has always existed between most groups on all standardized tests, state Superintendent Terry Bergeson told the Seattle Times the state "must ensure success of all students," as it is the core belief of standards-based education reform. Bergeson's goal is to make Washington the first state to eliminate the achievement gap found between ethnic and income groups.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ [1] Idaho State of the State Address: "Did you know that in the United States today, one in five high school graduates cannot read their diploma?"
2. ^ Seattle Times 1997 WASL results
3. ^ [2] Tribune SNOHOMISH COUNTY Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Investigation shows WASL design may be flawed By KRISTIN KLINE
4. ^ [3] Seattle Times September 14, 2006. Failure rates of minorities on WASL "painful" By Linda Shaw

[edit] External links

• WASL Facts
• Washington government FAQ for WASL
• Washington Education Association WEA
• [5] CURE of Washington state (critical of WASL)