Well, maybe calling the performance of this year’s high school seniors on the WASL “a beautiful victory” is an overstatement.

But state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson was entitled to be pleased that 90 percent of those seniors did pass the reading and writing portion of the test the first year it counted as a graduation requirement.

Only 3 percent of those students met the requirement through one of the alternative methods allowed by the Legislature. The passing rate will probably rise because students still have another chance to take the WASL in August.

These results show that a so-called “high-stakes test” isn’t the end of the world as WASL foes would like to portray it. When students know their performance on the WASL counts, and when educators prepare them properly for it, they have shown that they can deliver.

Critics claim the results are skewed because they don’t reflect the thousands of students who dropped out of school or have been reclassified as sophomores or juniors.

It is true that Washington’s public schools have an unacceptably high dropout rate, but the blame for that can’t be laid at the feet of Bergeson or the WASL. This is a system-wide problem that requires concerted effort in every school district.

As for reclassifying students who clearly aren’t ready to pass the WASL, that is far better than letting them simply advance at the usual pace toward a high school diploma based largely on “seat time” rather than actual mastery of essential knowledge – which was the way things worked before the Legislature made passing the WASL a graduation requirement.

The main reason for muting any celebration over the WASL results is the fact that only 72 percent of the seniors statewide passed the math portion, which does not count as a graduation requirement.

Realizing the math WASL was out of sync with the math standards used to guide instruction in public schools, the Legislature suspended its use as a graduation requirement. By 2014, students will be required to pass “end of course” tests in algebra and geometry in order to graduate.

A bigger factor in keeping seniors from graduating this year, according to school officials, will be a lack of the required number of course credits. That’s a serious problem, but again, that can’t be blamed on the WASL.

So yes, let’s call the first for-real WASL results pretty good. They could be better, and they don’t include math. But 90 percent in reading and writing – a number that will improve before it becomes final – isn’t bad at all.

The kids can learn – if we expect them to.