giddy with anticipation for the last time

For most, Christmas comes twice a year: once in December, and once in July, when Santa descends from the North Pole to deliver mattress sales.

For Washington educator-types, Christmas comes a third time, in August, when the state releases WASL results.

For one last year. After this, we'll have to get giddy about the High School Proficiency Exam, or HSPE, which, quite frankly, doesn't roll off the tongue.* What else does the future hold?

Students in third-through-eighth-grades will take the new Measurements of Student Progress. It will be shorter than the WASL.

About a quarter of the state’s sixth-through-eighth-graders are expected to take their exams online next spring, according to OSPI.

Dorn plans to have the majority of state testing online by the spring of 2012.

And who knows what the test will be like / called by then.

*Any experts at OSPI care to tell us how to pronounce the shorthand version? Is it H-S-P-E? HissPee? HizzPeh? H-Spee?

math WASL: one and done?

If Governor Gregoire signs HB 1562, students who fail the math WASL wouldn't have to keep taking it and taking it. Instead, they'd have to earn at least two more math credits during their high school career.

"To me, it makes perfect sense rather than retaking the WASL," said Jean Lane, Richland School District superintendent.

What students need if they're failing the 10th-grade math test is more math education, not more testing, she said.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn has proposed phasing in a replacement for the WASL that would be less on general knowledge and instead test students at the end of a course on knowledge they gained in that class.

Dorn spokesman Nathan Olson said that form of assessment should be in place by 2013, when the proposed law would expire.

Why change things now?

Ron Williamson, assistant superintendent for secondary education for the Kennewick School District, said dropping the requirement to retake the test in 11th and 12th grades would cut down on confusion.

"From a school perspective and a parent perspective, this probably helps because there is so much information about the WASL and the changing requirements that parents get mixed signals," he said.

So another change will help cut down the confusion caused by all the changes.

Yeah.

Update: She signed it.

Dorn and Obama: the mystic bond

Reading this KOMO article about Randy Dorn's rocky start, I was struck by some compelling similarities between Dorn and President Obama. Think about it: both...

• Surprisingly defeated a heavily-favored female opponent by calling for change
• Had to deal with a system in crisis at the outset of their term
• Stumbled out of the gate, partly because of their own missteps, and partly because of unexpected opposition from entrenched legislators
• Are not yet the sum of their expectations

I have, as they say, a theory: Dorn and Obama are stigmatic twins.

replace the WASL... with what, exactly?

Randy Dorn has already started the chainsaw of WASL reform. That tree's headed for the lumber yard. Gerald Bracey on the plan:

Dorn wants to replace the WASL with shorter, multiple-choice tests. Bad idea. And he wants the tests to be more "diagnostic." Dorn's impossible dream.

First off, in a KUOW interview, Dorn said the new tests would still be valid. He cannot know that. Validity is always an empirical question. Usually, if you make a test shorter, it becomes less valid. Of course, I've oversimplified in that statement. The question really is, valid for what? It's relatively easy to judge the content validity of test items — do they measure what they claim to measure? From the released WASL items I've seen, I'm not certain those items do....

But the bigger validity question is: Does the test make any difference? Are college professors more pleased with students who have passed the test? Are employers? The answer is a resounding, "We don't know." States are afraid to ask this question because, if the answer comes up, "No," they will be seen to have spent millions, even billions, of dollars for nothing. But informal studies by journalists have yet to turn up a positive instance. So forget all the fear-mongering rhetoric that we need these tests in order to compete with China and in the global economy.

The solution is taking the sting out of the WASL. Right now, our school uses a WASLesque reading assessment to help place students in appropriate instruction. It's given on computers, adaptive, and offers near-instant results. It's not perfectly valid for everything, but that's not its point. It's part of a battery of assessments, and it's not a graduation requirement. Its utility has nothing to do with its lack of "high stakes" motivation.

According to Bracey, what alder of progress should arise in the WASL's place? He concludes with a catkin of a recommendation:

What Washington should pursue is a course like Nebraska's, where testing ideas originated with teachers (remember them?) and evolved into something we might call instruction-driven measurement. Right now, what we have is measurement-driven instruction and it is a disaster, both in Washington and in the nation at large.

Bzzt. False dichotomy, five yard penalty. Intelligently-crafted assessment should drive instruction, and instruction should inform assessment. No either-or about it.