House bill provides WASL alternatives

OLYMPIA -- Washington students would get more than one crack at the standardized test that looms as a high school graduation requirement, and some who struggle with the exam could follow an alternative path to a diploma, under a bill passed overwhelmingly by the House yesterday.

The bill, which education activists say is a key measure in the current legislative session, heads to the Senate after the 95-2 vote.

Business and labor interests in the education community support the revisions. Their spokesmen yesterday said they hope the measure avoids the fate of a similar proposal last year, which was bundled with other education bills in an all-or-nothing package that failed to win lawmakers' approval.

The House bill changes the rules regarding the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning, created under the state's landmark 1993 education reform. The math, reading and writing WASL is given each spring in grades four, seven and 10, and a science version in the eighth grade.

Under current regulations, students must pass all sections of the 10th-grade test to get a diploma, beginning with the high school graduating class of 2008 -- today's eighth-graders. There are no provisions for retakes or for getting a diploma without passing the test.

In 2003, only one-third of the state's 10th-graders passed all sections of the test.

Under the House bill:

Students can retake sections of the test that they fail. Retakes would be offered at least twice a year in grades 11 and 12.

Students can "bank" passing scores on individual sections of the test. The 10th-grade WASL will include math, reading and writing until 2008, when science will be added (a listening section was dropped after the 2003 test).

Students who repeatedly fail to clear the WASL bar may still get a diploma by demonstrating their academic ability through an alternative means to be designed by the state superintendent of public instruction, subject to legislative approval.

The alternatives must be no less rigorous than the WASL.

"No one test is good enough to be the basis for high-stakes decisions for students and schools," said Charles Hasse, president of the Washington Education Association, the union representing public-school teachers. "There has to be some sort of alternative assessment."

Jennifer Vranek, executive director of the business-linked Partnership for Learning, also endorsed the alternative assessment, provided it's not an easy way out. [Note: the organization's name has been corrected since this article was originally published.]

It should be "a safety net for students, not a wide-open door," she said.

"The devil is in the details," she said.

Vranek gave unqualified support to the provision for retakes. In other states with high school graduation tests, courts have consistently ruled that students must get more than one chance to pass.

The House bill allows special-education students who cannot take the WASL to graduate after demonstrating their abilities another way.

"This will, for the first time in the state of Washington, establish a diploma that has two levels," said Rep. Gigi Talcott, R-Tacoma. "One would be a certificate of academic achievement; the other would be a certificate of completion."

And Rep. Jan Shabro, R-Bonney Lake, a former special-ed teacher, said, "As we know, everyone has different learning styles. For the population that I taught, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning simply wouldn't be appropriate. However, this gives recognition for the work that they do."

The legislation also provides for English-language learners to move on to college without passing the WASL by the end of 12th grade.

The bill does not require private-school students or home-schooled students to earn the certificate of academic achievement.

One of the two opponents of House Bill 2195, Rep. Jim Clements, R-Selah, likened the passage of the measure to the sinking of the Titanic.

Clements said Washington already has an adequate alternative means of graduating by offering the General Educational Development diploma.

He was also concerned with the possible use of alternative testing in languages other than English to accommodate ESL students.

"The problem with that is that you will create a caste system," said Clements. "Because in our society, English is the language that you succeed in."

P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@seattlepi.com

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