Review of WASL scoring to begin in next few weeks

In the wake of the problems that have plagued the SAT college-entrance exam, an independent, top-to-bottom review of how the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) is scored will start within the next few weeks.

Two Washington education officials toured the Iowa scoring center of Pearson Educational Measurement last week and found that the company — which scores the SAT, the WASL and a number of other tests — already has instituted procedures to avoid problems that led about 4,000 SAT exams to be misscored this year.

Still, in separate discussions, the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and company executives mutually agreed that an independent review would be prudent.

"We just want to make sure there's nothing falling through the cracks," said Joe Willhoft, interim assistant superintendent for assessment and research.

This spring, Pearson will score 1.6 million exams that are part of the WASL, given this year in third through eighth grades and in 10th grade. The 10th-grade scores will be closely watched because that class, the class of 2008, is the first whose students must pass the WASL (or some approved alternative) to graduate.

Washington's contract with Pearson allows for the review, which will be done at Pearson's expense, Willhoft said. It will cover everything from the creation of test booklets to how items are scored, and scores tabulated, he said. It will examine OSPI's part of that process as well as Pearson's.

OSPI wasn't concerned that the SAT issue would recur, but officials wanted to ensure that other problems don't crop up, Willhoft said.

The SAT problem appeared to be largely a mechanical issue, he said. Some SAT test booklets were scored within 30 minutes after arriving at the scoring center. In general, Pearson likes to wait at least eight to 12 hours, Willhoft said, enough time for the test booklets to return to the same moisture content they had when they were printed. Humidity changes can cause the bubbles on answer sheets to shift up to one-third of the width of a bubble, he said.

Willhoft said Pearson now uses humidity probes to monitor the moisture content in stacks of test papers.

Willhoft said many quality controls already are in place, but OSPI wants to be careful.

He expects the review to be done by sometime this fall.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com