Interesting article in the Times with direct repercussions for every student in Bellevue School District. Apparently, new Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn’s plan to replace the WASL to make it shorter, easier to score and more “diagnostic” is controversial (don’t you wish that something, anything in education could just make sense and be simple?).
I think the author somewhat misses Dorn’s point. The WASL, in particular the Math WASL, was unnecessarily time consuming, both to take and to score, because of it’s focus on long response questions. The resultant answers required hours to read and score. Then were of no use diagnostically (at least with the math test) because one could never tell if the missed points were due to poor mathematical thinking, calculation, English or drawing skills.
Bracey asks “Are college professors more pleased with students who have passed the test?” and then answers with a resounding “uh, maybe, maybe not”. I can’t speak for “college professors” but the inexorable march into broad acceptance of the ACT (and even that old, classic with the spotty reputation, the SAT) by college admissions groups is evidence that there is some validity to be found in their results. Further, as a teacher dealing with ACT and SAT scores on a daily basis, I can definitively say that they (more so the ACT than SAT) ARE diagnostic.
Mr. Bracey certainly knows far more about testing than I. However, I hope that Mr. Dorn sticks with his plan and produces a good, old-fashioned, multiple-choice assessment (with maybe a brief writing section) that makes kids demonstrate that they can do Algebra, read a passage from an encyclopedia and understand it and write their thoughts about an issue in a simple four paragraph exposition. There’s no reason the average kid (even the well below average kid) shouldn’t be able to do that and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t expect it. Kids will produce what you ask of them. Instead of the incomprehensible WASL, let’s make a test that the kids, we parents and, yes, the teachers understand and make the kids pass it.
