Editorial
Legislators are failing the WASL

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State Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Kent, should stop messing around with a well-crafted House bill that clarifies state high-school-graduation requirements, and work instead to pass it without major changes.

There's no time to waste. Next year's freshman class will be the first required to pass the 10th-grade state assessment test in order to earn a diploma. Students and teachers deserve straightforward, reasonable expectations.

House Bill 2195 codifies implementation of the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test and allows students who fail it to retake it — several times if necessary. The bill passed the House with broad, bipartisan support and endorsement from the education and business communities.

It should be sailing through the Senate on its way to becoming law. Instead, Johnson, who chairs the Education Committee, has proposed changes to key parts of the bill that threaten to derail the effort.

Johnson would limit students to two retakes of the WASL. Those who fail both times could take what's known as a norm-referenced standardized achievement test. Both changes would undermine the intent of the state's ongoing standards-based education reform.

Developing alternative assessments is necessary; it's included in the House bill. But using a completely different kind of test based on different standards ignores the point of the reform — to make sure students learn what the state has determined they should know.

Limiting retakes to two is also wrong — and potentially illegal. What incentive would there be for a student who failed the WASL after two retakes to continue with school?

Slightly more than one-third of the state's 10th-graders passed the reading, writing and math portions of the WASL last year. It would be disastrous if the passage rate remained that low once the test counts for graduation.

Johnson questions the reliability and validity of the WASL. This is not the time for that. The legislative session is ticking toward its final days and, once again, lawmakers appear to have little to show in the way of solid education reform.

Voters aren't going to stand for it much longer.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company