But they’ll never learn.
To be able to graduate from the public school system here in Washington State, you need to pass a series of tests we call the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) before you finish your senior year in high school.
Now read these two opening sentences from this report by the local CBS media outlet,
The high failure rate among high school students taking the state’s high-stakes assessment test is spurring the state’s top school official to push for a new $42 million summer school program.
This year’s sophomores are the first class to face strict new graduation requirements, and if past performance is a good predictor, about half of them will fail at least one part of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning on their first try.
Sounds scary, huh? Well, it’s not.
These kids have a full three years to pass these WASL tests. The tests ask questions at the 10th grade level in all subjects, so you would figure that some of the students might not pass it their first time around.
But they get the rest of their sophmore year AND their whole junior and senior years in school to pass and the tests are given up to four times every year, depending on the district. So theoretically, these kids will have twelve chances over a period of three years to pass.
Yet the fright mongers are out in force to try and get their hands on some of the money that seems to flow like beer out of some sort of bottomless keg from Olympia.
If the students aren’t passing their first time around, all it shows is where the kid needs more improvement. You get him/her into an extra couple of classes that year so that they can improve their skills and them give them the test again.
Spending $42 million on a summer school program is totally unnecessary to help him/her out. The classes during the regular school year are what the kid needs. Not tutors, not new books and definitely not an overly expensive summer school program. Money spent does not equate to high test scores and I don’t know how long it is going to take the teacher’s unions and the ‘please waste my money ‘ public to understand that.
I just hope they learn quickly, since this quote shows that the kids aren’t,
“We can’t hide the fact that we gave diplomas last year to kids who couldn’t readâ€?
Now, I voted for Terry Bergeson, the Superintendent of Public Instruction who daid the above line, in the 2004 election, but she never mentioned this cockamamey idea to waste my tax money. Frankly, I can’t say that she had much competition. Her opponent wanted to dump the WASL altogether and waste my tax money to fight the NoChildLeftBehind laws in federal court.