1. Comment by Penny Schinke - January 20, 2008 @ 03:45 AM We need to get our "proverbial" shit together, and our "elected officials" corralled, and demand that the students in our schools have a curriculum and a "FINAL TEST" that are stable and attainable. This on-going manipulation of students, teachers and parents is disabling, at best, insane, at worse.
2. Comment by Jim DeFord - January 20, 2008 @ 05:21 AM Ahhh the infamous WASL... The good side of it is that students will have to prove they learned something and the teachers will actually have to teach for a change. The bad side of it, is that the students will end up only being taught to pass a test. In the lang run, shame on the teachers for this program to even be considered. Maybe the teachers should be given a version of the WASL and let's what THEY really know...
3. Comment by Phil Bell - January 20, 2008 @ 05:53 AM It seems that the WASL is always fodder for a good hearty discussion on both sides... Being married to a person that has been involved in the education process for years as a substitute teacher and now as a private tutor I have seen effects of this forced mandate on teachers. Many don't realize the time that teachers spend having to "teach to the test". It appears to me that teachers nowdays are having to spend more and more time teaching items mandated by legislators, many of which don't have a full picture of what's it's like to teach in a classroom. I'm surprized they get as much done in a day as they do. There is, and always will be, those students that will struggle with such a test. That is a basic fact. Comments such as "teachers will have to teach for a change" and "give the teachers a version of the WASL and see what they know" make me cringe. Let's put the author of such comments in a classroom and see how they fare!!
4. Comment by Pat L - January 20, 2008 @ 11:22 AM Agreed, Phil. As an educator myself, while I have not had to deal with the WASL, I totally understand the issues involved with "teaching to a test". And I agree that students NEED to show that they have learned what our communities deem essential for high school graduation. There's so many interest groups out there bleating about education that it seems an impossible task to agree on exactly WHAT needs to be learned, and HOW. Should our teachers become mere robots, "teaching to the test"? Who should design this test? And yes, let's have all teachers, and ALL the complainers too, TAKE the darned test. That way I think we could really see ... NOT what teachers know... but what the test actually measures, if anything worthwhile. Meanwhile, I hope the community becomes aware of the hazards of this method of testing. Perhaps we ought to do like the Japanese or the Europeans... have ONE major test at around age 16 (or earlier, in the case of the Japanese) which TOTALLY determines the future for our young folks. (of course, Japan has an extremely high youth-suicide rate, related to this test). What would we think of THAT?
5. Comment by Jim DeFord - January 20, 2008 @ 03:55 PM I won't pretend to know which way to go here, but I'll always lean towards WASL and far away from legislative direction in our schools. They are no more trained than I to make those decisions. That's why us taxpayers pay huge taxes for personnel within our school system to make those decisions. And we'll only be paying ALOT more very soon since a very, very small minority tossed out the super-majority vote for school bonds/referendums. I want to see testing an accountability within our school system rather than a bunch of people running around with their hands out otssing money at a bad thing. We don't want our system becoming like that city across the river.
6. Comment by Amy Chesis - January 20, 2008 @ 06:12 PM "The WASL is not a perfect test" Understatement of the year. WASL results don't correlate well with national standardized tests. A kid doing well in WASL doesn't necessarily test well in Iowa Basic Skills, a national test with a long background. It doesn't test whether the teacher is doing well or not: there are too many variables that are much stronger - socio economic - school budget - Tests have changed too much from year to year to validate over time. Did your kid really learn that much / stop learning between tests? Which year did it happen? Why did they drop the 'listening' test? Why did they change the scoring rubrics for reading and writing? Because it became a high stakes test, schools shifted concentration in teaching and learning to the basics to get the 'borderline' not pass to pass. So there is no real improvement in teaching for the C+ up student and lost learning opportunities for those struggling with the basics. And WASL was incorporated to accommodate the NCLB legislation. It wasn't designed for that, and is retrofitted to fill in. With renewal of NCLB unlikely (or not without major revisions) the WASL test becomes less important.
7. Comment by phil jones - January 20, 2008 @ 11:56 PM There are several problems with the wasl. I dont have a problem with finals. But the weeks wasted prepping for the wasl are wasted time. The fact is when you live life theres no freaking tests. The only way to show an educAtion has really worked is to lolok at what the student has done 20 years later.
8. Comment by Kate Hall - January 21, 2008 @ 11:45 AM Oh, what a waste! Time, money and young minds. All have been wasted on the WASL. My children's school careers have been structured around passing the WASL. Never mind what is learned as long as you know how to answer the test correctly. Not so much answer the problem but answer the test. Are the students better educated now than 10 or 30 years ago? No, but hopefully they will apply the methods learned in the last however many years that have been wasted and apply them when they take the WASL. The time and money spent on WASLing should have been used to hire more teachers. My son's English class has 36 students. (I'm sure it's not the only one) 36! How does a teacher or a student ask or answer individual questions with 36 students in a 1 hour class? They can't during class time. So the kids come in during lunch and before or after school. These kids are trying. They want to get good grades and NEED to pass the WASL. WASHINGTON STATE has failed these children.
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