Pass WASL: check; Graduate: uh ...

Predictions of failure aside, here's good news: 91.4 percent of this year's high-school seniors passed the reading and writing portions of the state test or an alternative required for graduation.

In the academic parlance of do or die, Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson is declaring victory. Appropriately so. The Class of 2008, the first required to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to get a diploma, cleared this hurdle with ease.

A small percentage did not.Additional chances for these students remain. The WASL can be retaken in August. Others are under a June deadline for a "collection of evidence" alternative to the graduation requirement.

Take a few victory laps everyone, but let's not crow too much. Test results show good news but it is, after all, just one of four state high-school-graduation requirements.

Students must also earn the required number of credits in each subject area, complete a special project and write a plan for life after graduation. In these areas, the news is not so uplifting. Turns out a lack of credits is the biggest roadblock to a high-school diploma. Of 67,000 seniors statewide, 31 percent fell shy of the proper credits, jeopardizing graduation even if they aced the WASL.

Educators — led by the state's teachers union — have argued, sometimes credibly, sometimes not, about the challenges of high-stakes testing. Debate should move now to why high schools are allowing students to get all the way to 12th grade without the requisite credits.

A diploma does not mean simply passing a test; it means possessing a body of knowledge that could have only come from inside the classroom.

From Bergeson to the Washington Education Association to the school down the street, attention must be paid to the seniors falling short of graduation. Accountability demands that attention be paid.