Reprieve from WASL sought

With high schoolers likely to get a temporary reprieve from a high-stakes math test that’s now required for graduation, some state lawmakers are pushing for a delay in the rest of the test as well.

“Clearly, some people think it was a mistake to tie the WASL to graduation,” said House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle. But he said he’s not sure yet whether he’d allow a House vote on a broader reprieve for students.

As the law stands now, students starting with the Class of 2008 must pass the math, reading and writing parts of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

But when 49 percent of last year’s sophomores failed the test, lawmakers and parents grew increasingly uneasy at the prospect of denying diplomas to tens of thousands of students. In November, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson proposed delaying the math graduation requirement for three years. Gregoire said the school system had failed the students and that it would be unfair to penalize them. She wants those students in mandatory, rigorous math classes, however, until they graduate.

The governor has also hinted that she might suggest a similar reprieve for the science part of the test, supposed to become a graduation requirement in 2010. Only 34 percent of those tested passed the science part last year.

The math-test reprieve has good odds of passing both the House and Senate, legislative leaders say.

“We’re going to delay the math portion for sure,” Chopp said Wednesday in a meeting with capitol reporters. Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said the measure has “lots of support” in the Senate as well.

Now lawmakers in both the House and Senate are floating the idea of delaying the entire test – including the reading and writing portions – while the state is “figuring out which investments in education are going to pay off the best and making those,” as Brown put it.

Chopp sounds lukewarm on whether he’d go along with a broader delay.

“We’re open to talking to people in our caucus about maybe the other areas,” he said. “But I think actually in the other areas, we’re making real progress. In reading and writing, the vast majority of our students are passing. People would say `Look, it seems to be working.”

According to Bergeson’s office, 82 percent of the Class of 2008 passed the reading test last year and 81 percent passed writing.

Chopp said he’s unsure if he’d let a complete WASL reprieve bill come to a vote on the House floor.

“We’re going to have lots of discussion about that,” he said.