More than 90 percent of WA Class of 2008 meet WASL standards

Another report card for the Washington Assessment of Student Learning arrived on Tuesday: the first class of students facing the test as a graduation requirement has achieved a 91.4 percent passage rate on both the reading and writing portions or fulfilled alternative requirements.

"It's just a beautiful victory," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said while presenting the spring WASL results.

Bergeson said she was most excited about the accomplishments of low-income students and members of ethnic groups that have struggled to meet state standards.

Nearly 87 percent of low-income students have passed both the reading and writing WASL or fulfilled requirements of an approved alternative. About 85 percent of American Indian seniors, 86 percent of black seniors, 84 percent of Hispanic seniors and 86 percent of native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander seniors met the standard.

Those numbers do not include the roughly 9,000 students who started with the Class of 2008 as freshmen but have dropped out of school since, or another 5,500 who were with the class when school started last fall but are no longer, either because they dropped out, transferred out of state or their status is unknown, state officials said. State education officials say 3,779 of the dropouts passed both the reading and writing parts of the WASL before leaving.

Among those who stayed in school, 5,772 seniors have not passed the WASL, including about 3,000 students who have never taken either the writing or the reading or both.

Another 5,457 students, who started out with the Class of 2008 four years ago but did not have the credits to move on with their class, were reclassified by their school districts as being part of the classes of 2011, 2010 or 2009. Of these students, about 2,536 had passed the reading WASL and 2,654 had passed the writing as of last fall. Updated figures won't be available for this group until June 16.

Add together all those groups - current students, dropouts and students held back from the Class of 2008 - and compare their WASL passage rates and you get a rough estimate of 75 percent of the original Class of 2008 that would have met the standard if they were trying to graduate this year.

Students in the Class of 2008 still have two more opportunities to make the grade: the August high school WASL and the June submission of a "collection of evidence," an alternative way of satisfying the requirement.

The results of those attempts won't be available until months after this spring's formal graduation ceremonies.

The WASL is 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 what they will do after graduation.

And they still have the hurdle of the math WASL, although passage of that test is no longer a graduation requirement. Only 72 percent of this year's seniors have passed the math WASL. The rest were required to pass another math test and take the WASL or one of the approved alternatives.

Bergeson's message to those who won't graduate this year: Keep trying.

"Don't give up. You can stay with us this summer. You can stay for another year. It's worth it to get the skills you need for the future," she said.

High school students not in the Class of 2008 who took the WASL will get their results in the mail later this month. Students in lower grades will get their scores in late summer, when the state releases WASL results for all students who took the test this past spring.

High school principals have said they expect this year's graduation rate to hold steady. Only a few students are still scrambling to find a way to pass the WASL.

A handful of students at Ballard High School in Seattle spent last weekend at the library trying to finish their collection of evidence portfolios in reading and writing in time to meet a deadline this week.

Ballard Principal Phil Brockman estimated earlier in the year that as many as 30 of the school's seniors wouldn't collect a diploma this month because they couldn't pass the reading or writing sections of the WASL. But he said Monday that number was down to four or five students and all of them still had a chance.

"It's a special class. They've had to do some things that other classes previous to them didn't have to do. They've stepped up. They've engaged in school more than previous classes," said Brockman, who took over as principal at Ballard when members of the Class of 2008 were freshmen. "They get to graduate and I get to stay."