WASL Math Trips Up Students: 39 Percent of Class of 2008 Haven’t Fulfilled Graduation Requirement

By Debby Abe, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

Aug. 31–At least four out of five of the state’s seniors have met a new graduation requirement to pass the reading and writing sections of Washington’s high school exam, state education officials announced Thursday.

However, only 61 percent of seniors had passed the math section of the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning or successfully completed an approved alternative to the test, as of last spring, said state schools chief Terry Bergeson.

That means just over 27,000 students in the class still must either retake and pass the math WASL or can take more math classes under a new graduation option authorized by the state Legislature this past session.

“They are on the way to graduating. They are learning the skills they need to learn,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Bergeson. Referring to fears that the WASL could prevent huge percentages of kids could from graduating, she said “This train wreck everyone has been imagining is not going to happen.”

The progress toward graduation of the closely watched Class of 2008 was among the highlights of statewide testing results released Thursday.

In other notable results, which were reported as the percentage of students who passed the test:

–Fourth-, fifth- and eighth-graders saw sizable drops, ranging from 4.6 to 5.3 percentage points, in reading from their counterparts the previous year.

–Seventh-graders saw jumps in reading (7 percentage points), math (5.9 points) and writing (3.5 points).

–Third-graders saw a big boost in math (5.2 points) In fact, of all grades tested last spring, third-graders had the highest pass rate in math, with 69.4 percent meeting standard.

–In the 10th grade, 80.6 percent of students had passed reading and 50.2 percent had met the math benchmark, a slight drop from the previous year. But sophomores saw a jump of 3.8 points in writing, with 83.6 percent passing.

UPDATE ON CLASS OF 2008

This year’s senior Class of 2008 is the first in state history required to pass part of the WASL as one of their state graduation requirements. Members first attempted the test as sophomores, but many of those who didn’t pass on the first go-around have been retaking the 10th-grade level exam to meet the requirement, and some of those retake results were reflected in Thursday’s update.

The Class of 2008 snapshot of 73,075 seniors didn’t take into account teens who are in the class but might be lacking enough credits to be considered a senior this fall. Just under half of those 5,457 students have passed the reading or the writing WASL, while just 14.8 percent have passed the math WASL.

The state presented the Class of 2008 update that way to get a clearer picture of those who were supposed to graduate in June and are on track to earn enough credits for a diploma, said state superintendent spokeswoman Molly O’Connor.

Up until this past legislative session, the Class of 2008 was required to pass reading, writing and math on the WASL or an approved alternative. However, legislators postponed the requirement to pass the math WASL or alternative until 2013. Instead, students in the Classes of 2008 through 2012 students who don’t pass the math test can earn additional math course credits to fulfill the math requirement.

Mary Lindquist, president of the Washington Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state, said she was concerned about the discrepancy between high school students’ performance on national assessments versus their wok on the WASL.

“Our students outperform other states’ students hands down” on such national assessments as the SAT, ACT or National Assessment of Educational Progress, Lindquist said.

COURSE CREDITS AN OBSTACLE

An analysis Bergeson presented Thursday suggested that teens’ lack of course credits is shaping up to be a greater hurdle to graduate than passing the WASL.

The analysis, conducted by Washington State University at Bergeson’s request, looked at 5,117 members of the Class of 2008 from four unnamed districts. It examined those students’ progress on earning course credits as of last spring and whether they had passed the WASL. It found:

–61 percent of students had both passed the reading and writing WASL and were on track to graduate with course credits.

–The greatest percentage of students not on schedule to graduate — 22.6 percent — had passed the WASL but were behind in course credits.

–12.2 percent of teens in the worst trouble were deficient in credits and hadn’t passed the WASL.

–Just 4.3 percent of students were on track with course credits but hadn’t passed the WASL.

Bergeson said critics complain that the WASL requirement will prevent teens from graduating. But if the analysis holds true statewide, she said, that would be the case for only 4.3 percent of students.

“More kids are on track in these four districts not to graduate because of their courses than they are because of the WASL,” she added.

But Bergeson was troubled over the nearly 5-point drop in fourth- and fifth-grade reading scores. She said the plunge may stem from the fact that once large percentages — over 75 percent last year in those grades — of students in a grade meet the standard, the students not making it typically are those with deeper learning problems.

“We don’t think it’s the test,” Bergeson said. “We think it’s a performance issue.”

Though teens have an option to passing the math WASL, Bergeson wants to maintain the pressure to improve. She said her office will look at how to implement the recommendations of a state advisory panel that recommended revisions in the state’s math standards.

“We have to make it clear that math is so important,” Bergeson said. “If the kids and the schools feel that people are saying it doesn’t matter anymore — that ‘Oh we knew they’d give up’ — that message is a killer in the schools.”

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