WASL coverage was incomplete

Published 12:22 am Friday, October 3, 2008

You failed to report that fewer than 50 percent of students at Mount Si High School passed all three components of the WASL (“WASL scores show Valley students ahead of state average,” Sept. 8). Only 48.7 percent passed the math portion. This means these students would not be permitted to graduate from high school were this the class of 2008. The percentage may change some by 2008, but this high-stakes test does not make the education our children receive better. In fact, it has the opposite effect.

There are many students who will try their best and apply themselves fully and still will not pass this test. Yet they deserve a high-school diploma for their effort and what they have learned. We all have strengths and weaknesses and no single measure can capture this diversity. Similarly, teachers who work very hard and seek to challenge students can not assure that all deserving students will pass the WASL. My greatest fear is that students and teachers will give up because they will be told they have failed regardless of how hard they’ve worked. This is certain to happen even when the teacher or the student, by any other standard, has not failed.

This test costs lots of money, generates fear and insecurity in teachers and students, takes more than a week to administer and the results are not available to assist teachers in helping students during the school year the test is taken. Using the WASL as a graduation requirement fails to make the grade, not students and teachers.

Mark Joselyn

North Bend