Prospect of dismal test scores renews debate over WASL

By Linda Shaw
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Faced with the prospect that tens of thousands of high-school students might not graduate because they failed the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), state education leaders are in the middle of a collective gut check.

Is the exam fair? Too hard? A valid measure of learning?

Most important, is it reasonable to require next year's freshmen to pass it before they graduate in 2008?

All these questions are being debated anew as the state Board of Education prepares to decide in June whether to maintain the 2008 date, or delay it.

Also being considered are adjustments and changes to the test, including legislation that would allow students to take it more than once, and a close look at its quality.

Sample questions Two sample questions released by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction from the spring 2003 10th-grade math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (answers near the end of the article): Which of the following statements always describes a trapezoid? a. A trapezoid has one pair of parallel sides. b. A trapezoid has one pair of congruent angles. c. A trapezoid has two pairs of congruent angles. d. A trapezoid has two pairs of perpendicular sides. Jeremiah is doing an experiment in his math class. He flips four pennies in the air. What is most likely to happen? a. Two of the pennies will be heads and two will be tails. b. Three of the pennies will be heads and one will be tails. c. All four pennies will be heads. d. None of the pennies will be heads. Answers To trapezoid question: a To pennies question: a

And there are a number of proposals that could lower the scores students would need to pass.

"Everyone is very nervous about this, and they should be," said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson. "I wish they'd gotten nervous about it a long time ago."

Most want to avoid the education train wreck that would occur if the passage rate stays close to where it is now: Just 35 percent of last year's 10th-graders met the standards on all of the WASL's main subjects — reading, writing and math.

As it stands, those are the subjects that students will be expected to pass before they can graduate in 2008. (The listening section will be dropped this year; science is to be added in 2010.)

More students would likely pass if they got more than one chance to take the test and knew it counted for graduation.

But no one is counting on motivation alone to catapult the passage rate to politically acceptable levels.

With roughly one-third of 10th-graders passing now, "that leaves an enormously steep hill to climb," said Chris Thompson, executive director of the Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission. (The commission, also known as A-Plus, is the blue-ribbon panel responsible for setting the passing bar.)

Here's some of what could happen in the next few months:

• The passing scores could be lowered in reading and math for the 4th-, 7th- and 10th-grade WASL tests. Committees of educators, parents and others are being formed to review those scores. (The committees also could recommend raising the passing score, or leaving it alone.) The commission will make the final decision, now expected in March.

• Even if the passing scores don't change, the A-Plus Commission could decide in April that high-school students need just a score of 2 to get their diplomas. The reading and math sections of the test are graded on a scale of 1-4, and a 3, called "meeting standard," now is considered the passing score. Last year, more than half of the 10th-graders received a 2 or better in math and science and were within two standard errors of measurement in writing, which is graded pass/fail.

• A high score in one subject could offset a slightly-less-than-passing score in another. Or students who score close to the mark — within one or two standard errors of measurement — could pass as well. Those are two ideas being examined by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), which plans to craft a proposal.

• It seems likely students will get several chances to pass the test before 2008 — for legal reasons at the very least. The State Board of Education already has put the Legislature on notice: If lawmakers don't approve retakes this session, the board will likely delay the date the WASL becomes a graduation requirement.

If there's no money for retakes, "It doesn't make sense to declare (the test) valid and reliable," said state Board President Warren Smith.

Last week, the House approved a bill that would allow retakes; now, it goes to the Senate.

More WASL info For more information on the WASL test, go to: www.k12.wa.us/assessment/WASL/testquestions.aspx

• Students who don't do well on paper-and-pencil tests may be allowed to show their skill in other ways yet to be determined. The House bill passed last week directs OSPI to work on so-called "alternative" measures, and OSPI also plans to establish graduation guidelines for students in special education, or those learning English as a second language.

• The bill also would require school districts to write plans to help students who fail one of the WASL subjects, starting with 9th-graders in the 2004-05 school year. Bergeson says it's the state's responsibility to help pay for implementing the plans.

Any one of these proposals could significantly increase the number of students who pass the test. Estimates done by OSPI show that last year, if students could have offset a lower score with a higher one in another subject, 50-55 percent would have passed reading, writing and math. Based on the experience of other states, it's also reasonable to assume that just making the test one of students' graduation requirements would cause the passing rate to jump roughly 15 percentage points. In Massachusetts, more than 90 percent of students passed that state's test, counting retakes, the first year it was required.

Making the WASL a graduation requirement puts more pressure on students. Schools already face consequences for their students' WASL scores under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Under that law, all public schools and districts must meet annual progress goals, with the goal of all students scoring at a proficient level by the end of the 2013-14 school year. States adopt their own definitions of proficient; in Washington, it's now a 3 on the WASL.

In Washington state, 436 of the nearly 2,000 public schools did not meet their annual achievement goals under the federal act. Among others, the National Education Association, its affiliate state teachers unions and some Democratic Party candidates for presidents have recently criticized the federal law, which was approved by Congress two years ago.

All of the proposals to modify WASL standards have critics.

OSPI, for example, prefers allowing some leeway for students who come close to passing, rather than lowering the standard from a 3 to a 2.

Lowering the score "would be very difficult for OSPI to support," said Greg Hall, assistant superintendent for Assessment and Research. "You wouldn't want children graduating with that low level of competence."

But Jim Spady, a businessman and member of the A-Plus Commission, questioned whether a high score in one subject should offset a low one in another.

"If it's important enough to have a standard, it's important enough to hold kids to the standard," he said.

He leans toward lowering the passing score in the short run, in part to avoid discouraging too many students.

"Dropouts are a very large negative," he said. "You don't want to do anything that's going to reduce the graduation rate."

And there are those who question whether the WASL — or at least the WASL alone — should be a graduation requirement.

"The key education group, in my opinion, is the classroom teachers, and they've never quite thought that this WASL was the right way to test kids," said Senate Education Committee chairman Steve Johnson, R-Kent.

"I'm not sure it's the right exam for some students to be taking over and over again."

Some states, including California, have opted to delay using the statewide test as a graduation requirement.

Bergeson favors moving forward, with the belief that it can be done.

But she doesn't want to do that without retakes and more consistent help for students who are behind, and more money to help schools do all of that.

It's time, she says, "to fish or cut bait."

That decision, however, rests with the state Board of Education.

If Board members decide the test is "valid and reliable," the graduation requirement will be official.

So although its members have been advised that their responsibility is simply to make a narrow decision about whether the WASL is a well-made test, it also will be looking at larger fairness issues, including whether schools are now teaching what's necessary to give students a fair shot at passing.

And so will everyone else in the state's education community.

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

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company