There will be a test – but let’s hope it works

Depending on your point of view about the WASL, Wednesday’s announcement by new state schools chief Randy Dorn is either a big deal or not nearly enough.

There will be no changes to the WASL for the Class of 2009. But starting in 2010, new tests will be given to Washington schoolkids, replacing the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

One type of test will be given to grade school and middle school students that will measure their progress and give teachers and parents information to help students improve. In high school, 10th-grade students will be given something called the High School Proficiency Exam.

The WASL will be gone. But it will be replaced by a different test, one that may not yield a pronounceable acronym, but one that will have one feature in common with the WASL: Students must pass it to graduate from high school.

And that fact is why many people won’t think the big news is all that big. They want Dorn to kill the graduation requirement. Many may have thought that’s what Dorn promised in his successful campaign to defeat three-term incumbent Terry Bergeson.

Dorn was ready for that question Wednesday. He said he was clear throughout the campaign that he favors school reform as begun with the passage of House Bill 1209 in 1993. He was a prime sponsor, and the bill went through the House Education Committee when he was chairman.

Any confusion among voters came not from Dorn, he asserts, but from the way his comments were reported by the media. The lukewarm campaign support Dorn received from the Washington Education Association proves that he was clear because it resulted from his disagreement with the teachers union over the graduation requirement.

Maybe Dorn was misunderstood, but probably not. He was told many times during the campaign that his statements were vague – perhaps purposefully so. They might have remained vague because he needed the anti-WASL voters to see him as their champion in order to knock off Bergeson.

So, many voters will be disappointed. And the WEA, though supportive of the changes Dorn will make to the state testing system, will continue to use its clout in the Legislature to eliminate the graduation requirement.

That said, however, Dorn’s announcement is a big deal. First, he thinks he has the authority to make changes on his own, eliminating the need to wade through a legislative process that created the mess we have now.

Second, he will eliminate many of the arguments used to attack the WASL. He wants to shorten the test, use computers to administer it, shorten the time it takes to get results, and provide diagnostic information so students can get better.

Dorn insisted that shorter doesn’t mean easier. And he was forceful when asked if this is the first step toward killing the graduation requirement.

“I believe in an assessment system. I believe in high standards. I believe in a high school graduation requirement,” the former Eatonville High School principal said.

“I don’t want to go back to 1993 when kids got a diploma and I couldn’t say they had the ability to read and write and do math.”

For that reason his plan received qualified backing from the Washington Roundtable, the business group that has long championed school reform. Also in support was the League of Education Voters, which has stood behind both higher standards and testing to prove that students are meeting them.

And Dorn brought in two groups that have opposed the graduation requirement – the WEA and the Washington PTA – but will support changes to the test itself. That means he has succeeded in one important area: He has gotten previously antagonistic groups to agree on what they can agree on.

That doesn’t end the state’s WASL wars. It might, however, produce a cease-fire which is, by itself, a pretty big deal.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics