WASL woes

Our fair state will soon require all students to pass a standardized test in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. Trial runs have shown that impoverished, non-white, ESL* students consistently underperform, and risk failing. (This should be obvious to anyone who has critically examined American public education.)

So, how do we fix the problem?

A blue-ribbon panel voted unanimously yesterday to lower the passing bar in reading and math for the fourth- and seventh-grade exam, and in reading on the 10th-grade test....

The panel, the Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission, followed all the recommendations made in March by committees, largely made up of educators, that reviewed the WASL passing scores for the first time since the exam debuted in 1997.

This will lead to all sorts of hoo-ha, especially from conservatives lamenting the "demise of standards." Some critical thoughts, though:

1. The bar may actually have been set too high. Standards of this type, when criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced, are somewhat arbitrary. Resetting the standards after six years of practice-testing seems reasonable.

2. Six years is too long to wait to make this sort of determination.

3. The scores, as related to socioeconomic class, may be an artefact of the system that bases a massive amount of school funding on property taxes (levies, bonds, etc.) Rich school districts do well on the WASL, as a quick glance at the scores will show.

4. The WASL's original intent was to measure school, not individual student, outcomes.

5. The test has never been consistently given--i.e., the same schedule across schools, etc., so statistical comparisons are dubious.

At any rate, I'm waiting for the ballyhoo to begin.


*English as a Second Language