So Randy Dorn wants another delay in holding our children, their teachers and the state’s school districts accountable for learning.

The state schools superintendent is not the first nor will he be the last public official to call for pushing back high school graduation requirements. The math WASL and its underpinnings have proved about as popular with politicians as the prospects of closing state parks or letting sex offenders run loose.

That said, Dorn’s comments last week did provide a glimmer of hope for those of us who believe that a diploma should mean a student did more than warm a seat for four years.

He said he’s worried that members of the class of 2013, the first to have to meet math and science requirements, won’t have enough time to learn what they need to know to meet new standards debuting in 2011 and 2012.

Dorn knows the old ways of teaching math and science are failing kids, and he’s expecting the new standards to give students some trouble. That’s a heartening prognosis from the new boss of a school system that has long demanded too little of students.

But just because the state has failed students in the past, it doesn’t follow that Washington should continue the practice and knowingly send more students into the world ill-equipped.

Dorn is concerned that the replacement for the WASL won’t be in use statewide until 2012, when the Class of 2013 is already in its junior year. But the state has abandoned the concept of a genuine high-stakes test, and students today have alternative ways of proving themselves.

The 2013 date keeps the pressure on students and teachers, and that’s the only way this state will measurably improve education.

State Board of Education chairwoman Mary Jean Ryan notes that every time the state delays the high school graduation requirements, progress on improving instruction slows. Likewise, many students tend to slack off at the slightest hint that something might not be mandatory.

Set high expectations, and students and teachers will rise to meet them. That’s what happened with reading and writing when those requirements finally took effect last year and 90 percent of seniors passed.

The year 2013 is still a long way off. Give those eighth-graders a chance – they deserve better than a system engineered to make sure they graduate, ready or not.