By Richard Jansons, President, Richland School Board
January 2008

Our country's future depends on great schools and well-educated citizens. Great schools have high academic standards for the students. Standards are important because they help ensure our children are being taught well. In Washington, the standards are called Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).

In 1993, the state took action to improve school accountability. A single, state-wide test was developed to measure performance against the standards (GLEs). The test also gave parents and taxpayers a way to judge how well their local schools perform. The test was called the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.the WASL. The WASL was a good test for 1993.

By today's standards, the WASL test is as outdated as a type-writer. It's a very expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient tool. The WASL test costs the state about $78 per student, is given once per year, and the test results aren't usually available until the next school year. WASL testing consumes about 2 weeks worth of student learning time every spring. That's a lot of time that could be used for teaching instead of testing!

The Richland School Board and Richland School District strongly support the state education standards. The standards have had a positive impact on teaching and learning in Washington State and that's a good thing. However, we strongly believe that changes need to be made in the state's assessment system, specifically the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test. We question whether the WASL test should be the only assessment tool used to measure student progress.

The WASL is expensive to administer. Schools across the state lose many hours of instructional time administering the test. WASL results are known months later - consequently, the data is not timely and can't be used effectively to guide and plan instruction.

The good news is that there are alternative assessment tools which are more effective than the WASL. One of these is the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). MAP is inexpensive to administer. There is minimal loss of instructional time. MAP results are known within 24 hours - consequently, teachers and principals use this timely data to guide and plan instruction.

Please click on the video links below to learn more about this important issue. These video cuts were taken from a recent WASL forum. The speakers are Charles Haase, President of the Washington Education Association, and Dr. Richard Semler, Superintendent of the Richland School District.

We invite you to make copies of these flyers and use them to educate your friends, neighbors and family members.