Mandy: the trials of tests

Three days a week, Mandy Schendel arrives at school at 6:20 a.m. for the first of her three choir classes at Hazen High in Renton. She sings in the school's concert choir, the chamber chorus and Divina Voce, the school's top ensemble. Her dream is to study music at New York's famous Juilliard School, then become a country singer.

Mandy, 15, can handle pressure. Ask her to stand in front of an audience to give a talk or sing, and she's at ease. It's when she's alone with a pencil and an exam that she stresses out.

"It's so funny because no one's watching you," she says. "No one is looking over your shoulder."

WASL worries don't consume her days. In addition to her choirs, she keeps busy as a senator in student government, a cheerleader and a member of the National Honor Society. Outside of school, she participates in beauty pageants and, most recently, was runner-up in Miss Washington Teen USA. This summer, she won a President's Volunteer Service Award for 4,000 hours of community work.

But she's one of the students around the state with high grades who might not pass the WASL this spring.

All Mandy remembers about the seventh-grade WASL was that it was long and boring. The results, however, surprised her and her parents. Not only did she fail math, she didn't pass reading and writing by all that much. Her mother thought there must have been a printing error. After all, she says, Mandy had always earned honor-roll grades.

Mandy agrees with those who say students should have to have a certain level of skills to graduate. But she wishes there could be ways to demonstrate them other than one big test. She likes the idea of being able to put together a portfolio of her work, one of the ideas the Legislature is considering.

Her mother, PTA president at the elementary school Mandy's younger sister attends, agrees. She's written a letter to Gov. Christine Gregoire saying the WASL undermines the confidence of smart students.

Mandy's geometry teacher, Lisa Behmer, isn't worried about how Mandy will do on the math part of the WASL, to be given in April. Mandy works hard, Behmer says. And Mandy says she sometimes does fine on tests. But she isn't confident about the WASL yet.

"I know that a lot of times even though I know the material, I'm constantly second-guessing myself, and redoing. And normally that's something really bad on tests."

In geometry class recently, a half-dozen students rush to the back of the room to see their latest grades. Mandy stays seated. She doesn't go to look until the bell rings and most of the class has cleared out. Her grade is a B+, but she's not happy.

"It's never below a B," she says. "But it's always a worry."