WASL Results Have Schools Wondering What It All Means
By James Joyce III
When results from the spring WASL test were released by the state’s schools chief Tuesday morning, the figures for the Yakima School District mostly mirrored the statewide trend: there were some ups and downs.
Now, school officials locally and throughout the state are analyzing the data to determine what it says about how well they are educating children.
Not an easy task.
“It’s so hard to say anything definitive about scores that go up and down from one year to the next,” said Greg Day, director of academic assessment for Yakima schools.
For instance, the reading scores of Yakima students in grades 4 and 7 decreased from last year. But if you look at those scores over five years, the percentage of Yakima students meeting that standard grew more than 18 percentage points from 2001 to 2008 in the fourth grade and, among seventh-graders, went up nearly 33 percent during the same period. Similar upticks are seen in other subjects and other grades.
At the high school level, nearly 69 percent of Yakima students met the reading standard this year, a slight increase from last year’s mark of more than 66 percent.
For Yakima schools, the most progress over last year occurred among eighth-grade students in reading and mathematics. But on the down side, Yakima’s seventh- graders showed the largest decrease in the percentage of students meeting the standard in the same subjects.
Yakima student performance on the writing and science assessment improved across the board.
Washington students have been taking the WASL for more than a decade. The test grew out of a 1993 law that mandated higher learning standards for students, new state tests and increased accountability for students and schools. The Washington Assessment of Student Learning covers reading and math and, in some grades, writing and science, too.
The exam started in 1997 for fourth-graders, followed by grade 7 in 1998 and grade 10 in 1999. Grades 3, 5, 6 and 8 were added in 2006, as required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
WASL scores are used to track the progress of students, and schools. The federal government, for example, uses the results to judge whether schools and school districts are making the gains it requires under No Child Left Behind.
Washington state now requires high school students to pass parts of the WASL to earn their diplomas. Starting last June, seniors had to have passed the reading and writing sections of the 10th-grade test (or an approved alternative) to graduate. They also had to pass the math section, or pass a math class in their senior year.
Statewide, the WASL spring scores fell in reading and math in the fourth and seventh grades, a situation that surprised some school districts and Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson.
The results in some other grades improved, especially in grade 5, where the passage rate in reading rose to 75.3 percent, up 3.4 percentage points from last year. And more of this fall’s incoming seniors have already passed both reading and writing on the WASL than their counterparts had a year ago.
But the results in grades 4 and 7, which declined more than the other scores went up, are causing consternation for Bergeson and others. About 72 percent of fourth-graders passed the reading section of the WASL, down 4.3 percentage points from the previous year. In math, 53.4 percent of students passed, down 4.7 percentage points. In seventh grade, reading scores declined nearly 6 percentage points, to 62.8 percent passing, and about half of the students passed math, down 4.3 percentage points from last year.
When she first saw the fourth-grade scores, Bergeson said it made her heart sink. She has some ideas about what might have happened, but said she plans to do some research to get to the bottom of it.
It isn’t a problem with the test, she said. That’s the first thing her office examined.
“Something is happening with the kids,” she said.
After seeing mixed results here in the Yakima Valley, area school officials recognized that they still have a substantial challenge ahead of them.
“There are many more decreases than I would like to see,” Vickie Ybarra, president of the Yakima school board told district staff members Tuesday morning during the annual kickoff for the school year.
Later this week, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will release a list of schools that did not meet adequate yearly progress, which is a more complete report card for schools than just test results.
Within the next month, families should receive their children’s individual WASL results from the spring tests.
Although results from the testing and news about adequate yearly progress can be discouraging for educators, Ybarra wanted to pass along a message of hope.
“Please know that whatever the test scores say, we know you’re working hard,” she said.
Information from The Seattle Times was used in this report.
James Joyce III can be reached at 577-7675 or jjoyce@yakimaherald.com.
James Joyce III
Yakima Herald-Republic
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