9486 in the collection
The great WASL scam
Mothers Against WASL have launched SPONSOR A SENIOR; SAVE A DIPLOMA. Join them in this historic legal action on behalf of the students in the class of 2008 who are threatened with denied diplomas because of Washington’s exit exam.
By David Marshak
Terry Bergeson, superintendent of public instruction, proudly crows
that about 84 percent of the current senior class in Washington high
schools has passed both the reading and writing portions of the
Washington Assessment of Student Learning required for graduation in
June 2008.
Bergeson said, "Kids are stepping up to the plate. ... The train
wreck everyone has been imagining, it's not going to happen. Kids are
going to do it."
Eighty-four percent passing — sounds great, right? But Bergeson is
not telling us the whole story with this figure. Also, it's hard to
know what's actually happening because the Office of the
Superintendent of Public Instruction Web site provides contradictory
data.
Let's begin with OSPI's grade-level-enrollment figures from October
2006, the most recent numbers posted on the site. According to these
tables, there were 90,444 ninth-graders in Washington public schools
that month and only 77, 242 12th-graders. Comparing a state's ninth-
grade enrollment with its 12th-grade enrollment provides what's
called a school attrition rate. It's not a precise measure of
dropouts, because the number of students in each grade varies from
year to year. However, it does give a general sense of what's going
on.
These figures show 13,202 more ninth-graders than 12th-graders, which
suggests that about 15 percent of the students are leaving school
between the start of ninth grade and the start of 12th grade. This
fits roughly with the official dropout rate as listed by OSPI: 5.7
percent per year. Three years times 5.7 equals 17.1 percent.
However, this figure is almost certainly too low to be accurate, as
I'll explain in a moment. Nonetheless, even if we accepted this as
valid — a 17-percent attrition rate in the class of 2008 — it blows a
considerable hole in Bergeson's claim of WASL victory.
Using this figure as a baseline, of the students entering ninth grade
in 2004 — the class of 2008 — only 84 percent of the 83 percent of
the students still in school in 2007 have passed the WASL for
graduation. That means that 70 percent of the class has passed the
WASL, not 84 percent.
But, even this percentage is not credible. On the same OSPI Web site,
the state's "on-time graduation rate" is listed as 70 percent. That
number suggests that many fewer students in the original class of
2008 are headed toward on-time graduation.
Multiple studies about dropout rates have been conducted in recent
years both nationally and in Washington. Just about every study of
this sort has found that every state's chief school officer —
Bergeson in Washington — understates the actual high-school-dropout
rate. One study funded by the Gates Foundation found Washington's
graduation rate to be 67 percent. This means that 33 percent of
students dropped out. Other studies have found a little bit higher
percentage of graduates.
Let's take OSPI's own claim and see how it plays out. Seventy percent
of students graduate on time; 30 percent don't. We know that most
students who drop out do so before they get to 12th grade. Very few
students achieve senior status and then drop out. Just to be on the
safe side, let's allow for some seniors to quit during 12th grade and
say that 72 percent of the original class of 2008 are included in the
current roster of seniors.
If we take 84 percent — the passing rate — of the 72 percent of the
students included in Bergeson's count, this means that only about 60
percent of the original members of the class of 2008 have passed the
WASL.
When you have 40 percent of your kids failing, it's hard to see why
Bergeson is claiming victory. Forty percent of our kids failing is
very bad news indeed.
Bergeson's tactic of ignoring the entire class of 2008 — and focusing
only on the 70 percent or so who made it to the 12th grade on time —
unfortunately is typical of too many chief state school officers.
Massachusetts claims a 95 percent passing rate on its graduation
tests, even though 30 percent of its kids drop out. Texas has claimed
85 percent passing, even though its most recent school attrition rate
is 34 percent.
Standards-and-testing — the Essential Academic Learning
Requirements/WASL system — was supposed to deliver "world-class
schooling" for all kids. That was the original promise. Then Bergeson
amended it to only 80 percent of the kids. Now she's claiming victory
even though only about 60 percent of the kids are likely to pass the
WASL and graduate on time.
Is this really a great achievement after 14 years and who knows how
many hundreds of millions of dollars spent on testing? And, are our
schools not pretty much where we were in 1992 before we started with
this unproven yet very expensive obsession with standards and high-
stakes testing?
And, by the way, it's now almost 2008. Google — or voice-recognition
software — is at every child's fingertips. Does it really make any
sense any longer to try to compel our digitally native kids all to
learn the same stuff?
is an emeritus professor in the College of Education at
Seattle University.
— David Marshak
Seattle Times
2007-11-20
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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