Staff editorial

True high-stakes testing

If state lawmakers require all schoolchildren in Washington to pass a "high-stakes" test in order to graduate, why shouldn't the people of our state require our lawmakers to take the same test? That's the question posed by the sponsors of Initiative 780, an all-volunteer campaign started by three local education professors.

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning WASLtest is administered to all third, seventh and 10th graders in our state, and starting in 2008, passing the 10th-grade test will be required to graduate from high school. Such "high-stakes testing" has spread widely in recent years in an effort to hold schools accountable for educating students. Critics claim the tests are poor indicators of student progress, and cause teachers to "teach to the test" rather than to the whole student.

The authors of I-780, including Bob Howard, assistant professor of education from UW-Tacoma, are not proposing that lawmakers be forced to pass the test in order to keep their jobs. Instead, all candidates for public office would have to take the test and post the results in the official voters' guide before the election.

The intent is not necessarily to embarrass low-scoring candidates, but to demonstrate that the WASL itself is an unreliable tool for measuring the effectiveness of education, which unfairly rewards and punishes students for performance on a single exam rather than for the overall quality of their work or their progress.

We see no good reason why public officials should be afraid of a test they are willing to impose on all students. Many of the arguments against imposing the test on adults can easily apply to students as well. Polls show wide support among voters, and if the sponsors can get enough signatures to place I-780 on the ballot, it will have a good chance of passing. For more information or to print out copies of the initiative for volunteer signature gathering, visit www.democracy.org/WASL.