another day, another responsibility

The WASL isn't just about stress, standards, and lawsuits. It's a massive logistical headache as well, as the Tri-Cities Herald reports.

In Kennewick, a district of 14,500 students, there is no place big or secure enough to store the 26,000 test booklets, said Bev Henderson, director of assessment and achievement.

Principals and counselors collected and organized the booklets and stored them in various secure places in their buildings. Then, Henderson and two other district staff counted again at each school. It took three people about 15 hours over a five-day period to organize and sort the test booklets.

After they were sorted, logged and boxed, the tests were sent to the district's warehouse. The five pallets of boxes were picked up and shipped to Iowa and Texas today.

The last sentence of the piece is the most telling: "'It forces people to pull away [from] other jobs to make these things happen,'" notes College Place superintendent Tim Payne.

Assessment that takes away from learning. Remind me: why does it have to be a zero-sum game?