DLC Blog

Standardized Testing in Washington- The WASL

This year’s tenth graders will be the first graduating class required to pass WASL tests in Reading, Writing and Math to graduate high school in Washington State. The WASL, or Washington Assessment of Student Learning, is fairly controversial, as issues in standardized testing usually are. One the one hand, there are concerns that teachers and
schools will begin only teaching to the test, in other words developing a curriculum that is in essence only practice for a standardized test. If schools don’t show improvements in their percentages of students passing the test, they lose their federal funding. On the other hand, should students be allowed to graduate high school if they haven’t mastered these very basic skills? The WASL can serve as a benchmark to judge student’s progress, especially when students may potentially be advancing without satisfactory skills due to grade inflation. To discuss the WASL is to open a huge can of worms- if students don’t pass in tenth grade, do they repeat the class? Do they take a different class tailored to WASL prep? If so, where are the resources coming from to implement these new “remedial WASL prep” classes? These are just a couple of the endless questions that plague the controversial idea of the WASL model of standardized testing. Like it or not, 2008 will be the first graduating class to experience it firsthand, and be not allowed to graduate unless they pass the test.
Read more about the WASL on Netrekker by clicking here

Posted by Sean at November 16, 2005 09:29 AM in Humanities.