Apparent drop in WASL scores has schools upset

An anticipated drop in statewide test scores, particularly in seventh-grade reading, has prompted several school districts to raise questions about the validity of the 2006 Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) results scheduled to be released Friday.

An informal survey of the preliminary results from 17 districts, from Everett to Northshore to Federal Way, shows declines of from 6 to 13 percentage points in seventh-grade reading compared with 2005.

The Seattle School District's preliminary results were not included in the informal survey, which was initiated by some districts concerned about the results, but officials there said the Seattle scores were generally flat, with only a slight decline in seventh-grade reading. Bellevue's results also were not included in the sampling, but that district registered a 12-point drop in seventh-grade reading scores, officials said.

In a letter to Terry Bergeson, the state superintendent of public instruction, 14 Snohomish County school superintendents said the preliminary 2006 results raise questions about how the tests were scored and asked Bergeson's office to delay release of the results.

"The Snohomish County superintendents believe these results will be devastating to our efforts and should not be reported unless we are confident they are accurate," says the Aug. 28 letter, signed by Carol Whitehead, superintendent of the Everett School District, on behalf of all of the superintendents.

State education officials acknowledge that there is a "pretty large drop" in some districts' 2006 results, but they said they have checked and rechecked the scoring process and not found any problems.

Additionally, an independent audit of the scoring contractor, Pearson Educational Measurement, ordered by the state after problems surfaced last spring with the Pearson-scored SAT college-entrance exam, also raised no issues.

"We've turned over every stone. We've reviewed the process extremely thoroughly, and there does not appear to be any technical issue with the scores," said Joe Willhoft, assistant superintendent for assessment and research for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

Officials in some districts are calling for additional study of the results given the large drop in scores.

"We were shocked," said Bob Silverman, executive director of assessment and accountability in the Puyallup School District, which dropped 12 percentage points in seventh-grade reading.

"I can't tell my public that we have a serious crisis in performance from last year to this year because I don't believe it," Silverman said.

Mark Jewell, chief academic officer in the Federal Way School District, said his district also is waiting to see what OSPI says about the drop. One reason it's important, he says, is that state law requires districts to write learning plans for each student who fails the WASL, and that requires money and effort. Federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind act also can be triggered by a drop in scores.

Other school officials cautioned against reading too much into the results of one exam and noted that long-term trends show improvements across all grades and all subjects tested. And until OSPI releases the final results, districts can't do a detailed analysis of how individual students did compared to previous years.

In the Lake Washington School District, where seventh-grade reading scores dropped 6 percentage points, spokeswoman Kathryn Reith said the district is focused on the long-term trend in scores and understands that scores vary from year to year.

"We saw phenomenal leaps in reading scores in 2003-2004 and 2004-2005, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a drop after that," she said. "Sometimes you can explain it, sometimes you can't."

Staff reporters Linda Shaw and Rachel Tuinstra contributed

to this report.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com