I, like everyone else that will graduate in 2008 and for years to come, must pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning as a new and improved part of the No Child Left Behind Act. For those of you who are unaware what exactly the WASL, as we so loving have named this test, isit is a version of a standarized test which removes students from their schooling for two weeks out of the year so they can prove their learning abilities in Reading, Writing, Math, and Science. However, it is not similar to any standardized test most people have grown accustomed to, it has to be graded by other people and, as I will shortly explain, it is one of the most flawed ways to train students. The WASL does not necessarily test proficiency in Math and Science, it gives a problem and then allows for one to come up with a solution and explain that solution. I could theoritically get an answer completely wrong but pass with a good enough explanation. Because this testing style is so odd, teachers spend much of their valuable class time teaching student how to take the WASL rather than the material we need to learn. As of the class of 2008, everyone must pass the WASL in order to graduate high school. However, the WASL does not provide special testing for students who are in special education programs, nor for those who english is a second language to. Because the test requires a vast knowledge of the english language it is nearly impossible for these studetns to pass the test. Results show that less the 20 percent of immigrant student and disabled (special ed)students pass the WASL. In fact, the gave between white and minority students is extremely high. With schools depending on their test scores to recieve funding they have to cut back more and more on what children should be learning and focus more and more on this pointless test. The results from the last WASL show that over 50,000 students who took the test did not pass all four sections. Therefore the school is blaming the students and offering them multiple makeup tests which they can take during the summer and following years of schoolrather than actually look at how flawed the test is. To demonstrate the flaw of the test I will pose a question I was asked to answer using words pictures and or diagrams: "Why do scientists use technology to study volcanoes?" My repsonse was, "Scientists want to study volcanoes, but do they want to get burnt to a crisp by the hot molten lava? NO! So they use technology and it makes everything better." I then drew a picture of a stick person stuck in lava wearing a frownyface. I passed with that answer. This test allows for extreme subjectivity in grading. Unlike most standarized tests, which are graded by a machine, this test is graded by people. People who can be swayed by opinion, and people who often make mistakes. Because the testgraders have to be paid to grade the test, each test costs roughly $46.00, a regular standardized test costs roughly $3.00. One could ask almost any teacher and he or she would tell you that the WASL is a bad test, but the Washington State Board of Education doesn't seem to care what the professionals think. The head of the board just so happens to be friends with the religious leader/crazy person who developed the test and it also just so happens that the information she gave about this man was false. It was claimed that he was an accredited psychologist, however no group is willing to back him and his own collegues have stated that they thought his ideas were insane. The man, Robert Carkhuff, has a wonderful new theory called "Coprocessing with God", this theory replaces the traditional learning method of reading, writing and arithmetic with the three R's which are relating, representing and reasoning. For some strange reason the state saw fit that its students should not be learning how to reading write and do arthimetic but rather that they be able to adequately relate and explain concepts. Finally, the test is built inadequately for students. The worst portion of the test, the math section, asks student to demonstrate competency in concepts well beyond the grasps of the students who are forced to take the test at a lower grade levels. Because the test is so absurd, many students, parents, and teachers have chosen to rebel against it by taking actions as far as creating an antiWASL organization to simply refusing to take the test. Thankfully, the entire concept has gotten much simpler now that students throughout the state are being forced to pass this test to recieve a diploma. This writer poses one simple question: why is it that things such as this abomination of a graduation requirement are allowed to occur?
