Talk:Washington Assessment of Student Learning

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Controversy[edit]

About the low percentage of passing grades(which is required for graduation for '08 and beyond) I think students have three chances to take the test to pass it and graduate with their class. Not 100% sure, so someone who knows for certain might want to add something about that

How many times would Gilligan have to take the WASL to pass? The problem is that differences in test scores reflect differences in ability, parental education, and status, not problems in the system that will be solved by tinkering with the curriculum, standards or WASL. That's the fundamental fallacy of standards based education, the notion that we just have to "believe" that all will succeed and it will happen. A civil rights group studied the huge failure rates of minorities and concluded that Terry Bergeson was using "magical thinking", which if you look into her staff's beliefs in metaphysics isn't far from the facts. Bergeson promised that she would help struggling students by promising everybody will get a world class diploma, but the WASL promises to take it away from anybody that isn't qualified to get into the University of Washington by requiring that everybody has to be that smart. And our state is populated by a bunch of danged fools who believed her enough to vote her in for three terms. --Sugarcaddy 01:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OSPI did some research, and found that of students that weren't going to graduate due to not passing the WASL, almost every one of them didn't have the credits necessary to graduate anyway. I think something like 4% of the graduating class of 2009 wasn't going to graduate because of the WASL. It's not as wide-spread of a problem as everyone seems to think.
Students actually have five attempts to complete the WASL. Students who want to test more often than that need to pay their own way, but the state does not currently have a system in place to enforce that. At this point, a student can take the WASL as often as they want, excluding 9th graders (since the budget cuts of this past year). So for those keeping score, a student could theoretically get eight attempts at the HS WASL, new students can get six attempts (although I believe summer retesting may be going the way of the dodo, as well). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.213.144 (talk) 00:01, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

I am no fan of no WASL, because, as a tenth grader currently being subjected by it. However, this article is clearly being written from an anti-WASL base. There are no mentions of its negetive intents, feedback related to criticism, and there are sourced "facts" that reek of being part of the 99 percent of facts that are just be made up. Are there numbers of SPEC people failing the WASL? How could this statistic possibly be determined? I can testify that reading is hard and i cant read. Many statements, Enough specific ones. Not broad enough. This article needs a major NPOV clean-up and expansion. --Me 06:66, 6 April 66 (UTC)

  • support* hi i dont like the wasl because now iam bck fiv grds

Agreed. Also, there seems to be bias in the anecdote of the fourth grader who was suspended, leaving no citation to the incedent. --Luke 10:21, 21 April 2006 (PST)

People who promote the WASL are free to add to this. This provides significate information for those who want to what what the WASL is all about, and where it came from.

Well, those that are most likely to add to this are A. teachers or school administrators, B. students, or C. parents of students (such as myself). Category A. sees the wasl as a fuss that tests them based on their students ability, category B. is mostly angry at having to take another standardized test, and category C. hears all the complaints from category B. in addition to feeling angry that their child has to sit through this test instead of actually learning something. There is no simple way to make this unbiased, and that is a rule when it comes to the press. In general, it only seems to be adults without kids, the odd teacher/administrator which feels a need for some standards, or politicians which either are trying to look like they care about kids/schools or genuinely think the WASL is the solution to all or many of our schools' problems. Perhaps a pro/con section is the more probable solution than total neutrality.
Just go to the Partnership for Learning, they get tons of money to promote their POV. Nobody pays people to add stuff to WP. --Sugarcaddy 01:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A study was done on students applying to take college courses in high school. These students are the cream of the class, yet well over 20% of applicants did not pass all the WASL tests when the goal in 1997 was to have EVERYBODY pass at an even higher rate than these wonder kids. When the test first came out, NO elementary school, not even the top ones met the 80% passing goal. What does it mean when the goal for everybody EXCEEDS the level of the best school? Can you say "unrealistic"? Anybody who believes Bergeson's promises that everybody will pass doesn't see the emporer's clothes. --Sugarcaddy 01:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How about the fact that our superintendent of public instruction, when speaking to the media about the dismal pass rate in the high school math portion said two things: A} we don't believe there's a problem with the test; and B} we don't believe there's a problem with the teachers. So what she's in effect saying, is that the vast majority of students are stupid. I find that very difficult to believe. I also find it very difficult to believe the vast majority of teachers are poor teachers. The far more likely cause for dismal pass rates across schools is that the one constant among them - the test - is malformed. 24.22.246.142 (talk) 03:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

WASL → Washington Assessment of Student Learning – Expand acronym.

Survey[edit]

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
  1. Support; I mean, that IS the name of the danged thing. (But don't get me wrong--I love the WASL! Sleeping with my baby! Yeah!) Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 09:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Commercial Links[edit]

"Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising, or that that require payment to view the relevant content" is under "Links normally to be avoided"[1]. So how come there is a "Commercial WASL preparation and practice programs" section with links? --Spyderchan 18:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Define "master algebra"...[edit]

The article says:

The Partnership For Learning claimed that the 10th grade WASL only requires 8th grade level math, but many samples require mastering algebra, a topic some students will not take until college.

In the UK, "algebra" at high school (aka secondry school) level means anything involving equations with unknowns in (x and y, for example), whereas "algebra" at college (aka University) level means group theory and similar concepts. They're completely different things. Which is meant in the quoted sentence? If US students don't do basic equations until college, they are very behind, and if they're expected to know group theory to graduate high school, they're either very ahead or the test is extremely unreasonable (far more so than the article seems to imply). Can someone explain that sentence to me? --Tango 21:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to be able to solve the sort of ax + b = c problem. Traditionally, if you weren't headed to college, you never had to take it, in college or otherwise. If you are on a tech track, you'll need to take algebra in high school and start with calculus. If you're just a generic college student, you can wait until college. My kids are on an honors track, and they get matrices and other linear algebra thrown at them with integrated math that is aimed at high school, but moved down to junior high school, which is simply insane if you ask me.

The sort of reform that drives WASL holds that everybody has to master algebra by junior high school or we'll all end up going to hell in a handbasket, though given the ridiculously high failure rates on WASL, we're nearly there already. Unlike Europe or Asia where they use test scores to sort between the high and low tracks, here in America we're stupid enough to believe that everybody can succeed at one high standard, or else, and that the achievement gap will be erased between all income, ethnic and gender groups simply by taking WASL tests until the cows come home. This would be like requiring everyone in the UK to pass the university eligibility exam, or get no credential at all for 10 or 12 years of schooling. (Yes, we're really doing that. Watch it fall apart, it won't be long.) By international standards, Washington state is already "world class", that is, above average compared to other nations, but that isn't good enough for our legislators or education officials. Check out world class standards. There isn't any definition for this term, and that fact even has a referenced source, Resnick, one of the founders of standards based education. Thank God the education-industrial complex does not control WP (yet).

The 4th grade WASL in 1997 included several problems that you could find solutions to similar triangles or probability in a good jr. High or high school textbook if you were lucky, which is pretty typical of US reform math in the 1990s. My understanding is the NCTM is loved even more outside of the US, where open revolt has led them to backpedal a bit, and Australia is just adopting outcome based education where it was pretty much burned down to the ground by angry peasants in the mid-90s in the USA before being renamed to standards based and watered down to just requiring passing a test to graduate rather than a total turning inside out of everything. --Sugarcaddy 01:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That kind of basic algebra, even up to simultaneous equations, is part of GCSE maths in the UK (that's 10th grade in your system, I think - aged 16). Everyone is expected to do GCSE maths, although there are different tiers depending on ability (the teacher decides what to put you in for - each tier has a different range of grades you can get, with some overlap) - very basic algebra is in even the lowest tier, I think. We don't do calculus until A-level, so only people that choose to do Maths A-level do it at all (that's 11th and 12th grades for you, I think - age 17 and 18). I can't remember when we first learnt about similar trianges... may not have been until your 6th grade, but I'm not sure. There is some matrix work in the "Further Maths" A-level (basically, you can do double maths if you're good enough, and it covers some more advanced topics). --Tango 09:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Proposed Change[edit]

From the opening section:

The state-level WASL assessment includes multiple-choice, short-answer, essay, and problem solving tasks. Students with special needs are accommodated in the normal way by the provision of additional time, special equipment or tests in different formats. The WASL appears to have been designed to invert every criticism of standardized tests, but in fact bring new problems. Standardized tests were introduced to measure ability of very large populations at a low cost. The WASL is based on the Authentic Assessment movement. Many educators laud such tests for teaching purposes, but they warn they are not practical for large scale assessment; even the test notes for WASL warn that such scores should not be used for high stakes purposes such as grade promotion or graduation, which is exactly what legislators have passed into law. Multiple choice questions cost only a couple of dollars to score, compared to 30 to 40 dollars for manually scored tests. Machine scored items have only one correct answer, while agreement of barely over 55 percent on a 4-point range is considered to be accurate for the WASL. The Partnership for Learning says that WASL was developed and scored by teachers, but scorers only need a bachelors degree and a few days of training to score these tests.

Here are some changes that I'll put in, unless someone can give a good reason not to: 1) The line about "appears to have been designed" should be completely removed, IMO. Without a citation it doesn't meet Wikipedia standards. 2) The ultimate responsibility for what can and can't be done with the WASL belongs to the legislature; therefore, if they say its a graduation requirement, its a graduation requirement. A link to the WASL test notes so that people can see this perceived inconsistency for themsevles might help, but otherwise....meh. 3) The yay or nay nature of multiple choice answers can be taken either way; many would argue (and I'm one of them) that the WASL is a better assessment than the ITBS because it asks for application above filling in a circle. 4) Unless it can be demonstrated that the scorers are deficient, I think that last line is a non-sequiter and should either be removed from the open or expanded upon in the criticism section.

Thoughts? RyanGrant 22:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Rsing Droput Rates"[edit]

I propose the removal of the following:

"Opponents have often expressed fear that the WASL graduation requirement would cause a rise in the dropout rates in Washington State. Their concerns have been well founded. Attrition rates, which had been on the decline, began rising sharply for the class of 2006, and continue to climb.[11]"

I'm checking the link, but it doesn't show any prrof to support the point. The link does not include data for the c/o 2006, and the data that it has for preceding classes show a falling trend. Based on the release dates of the material, I'd expect the c/o 2006 stats to be available by Sept 2007, but they're not there. But more significantly, the fact that the rates "continue to climb" is not at all supported, and there is nothing in the material to suggest that such a claim can even be made prior to Sept 2008, when we'd expect to se the c/o 2007 information made available. Coupled with the controversial nature of the topic, and the clearly biased claim of "concerns being well founded [sic]", it seems to me like this whole thing should be removed. If anyone can put forth data that actually supports the claim, they can reintroduce the idea, and preferably with tone and language better-suited to the NPOV standards.

Discovery Institute[edit]

Why is the Discovery Institute included in the list of External Links? I see no reference to the "institute" in the text, so it just seems like some free advertisement for creationists. - Prothonotar (talk) 05:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WASL Not Being "Tossed Out"[edit]

I noticed an update to the home page stating that the WASL was being thrown out in favor of the HSPE and MSP.

"It has been thrown out and replaced by the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE) for high school students and the Measurements of Students Progress (MSP) for grades 3-8."

This is not entirely true. While Randy Dorn would like you to believe that, as that was his major campaign topic, the HSPE and MSP are just the WASL, renamed and repacked for better public opinion.

The WASL has finished its last year as the WASL. This year saw some lower grade level students piloting online testing. This past year also saw more multiple choice questions and less response questions and also shorter tests in general.

What's the difference for the new tests coming next year? Just the name(s).

The item bank is the same, the vendors are the same, the underlying staff and principles are all the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.213.144 (talk) 00:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I took the test and it was shorter and had more multiple choice (or fewer response questions). Each subject only took one day (it was two for the WASL), unless you had the writing HSPE/MSP. Pretty much what you said.

http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/statetesting/HSPE.aspx http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/statetesting/MSP.aspx 98.203.152.242 (talk) 04:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV[edit]

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
  1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
  2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
  3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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