House passes graduation requirements bill

OLYMPIA — The state House of Representatives on Thursday passed an updated version of a bill that would temporarily eliminate the need to pass a science test for graduation, but as previously, it is likely to stall in the Senate.

House Bill 2214, which previously passed the chamber last month during the first special session, passed on a bipartisan 83-6 vote Thursday. It now heads across the rotunda, where Republican Sen. Steve Litzow, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he does not plan to hold a hearing on the bill or advance it.

The measure would also simplify the state testing system, getting rid of complicated alternatives to passing high school exams. Instead, students who do not pass the statewide tests in high school would be required to take more classes in those subject areas in order to graduate.

Sponsor Rep. Chris Reykdal, D-Tumwater, said that the state is on the cusp of telling 2,000 students that they won’t get a diploma.

“This is so much bigger than a biology test,” he said. “This is about opportunity.”

If the measure were to pass the Senate and be signed into law, seniors who failed the biology test would receive a diploma this year, even if their school’s graduation ceremony has already occurred.

But Rep. Ed Orcutt, a Republican from Kalama, said that he had concerns about the state getting rid of an assessment.

“If every time someone complains and says ‘I can’t pass that,’ we just throw it out?” he asked.

Litzow agreed.

In a statement issued after the House vote, he wrote: “Lowering standards is a poor excuse for a decades-long failure to create an education system that works for everyone.”

“Telling all children it is okay not to know the material because the Legislature will change the rules to provide a diploma anyway so the adults in the system look better is not a good lesson for our children,” he wrote.