SPI: We must abandon our obsession with WASL (hahahaha)

["Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@comcast.net>]

Fwd: SPI/WASL quotes
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Orlich [mailto:dorlich@wsu.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 2:56 PM

Subject: Fwd: SPI/WASL quotes
Importance: High


  Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 14:42:27 -0800
  To: dorlich-wsu.edu
  From: Don Orlich <dorlich@wsu.edu>
  Subject: SPI/WASL quotes
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          Friends:  Please review these statements and notice the
disconnect!  One might be tempted to call the SPI a bald-faced liar.  Seldom
have her printed comments come so closely to be compared directly. Now, just
who has the obsession?




          From Page 2, Spokesman-Review, November 15, 2003.
          From staff and wire reports.


          ". . . Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said
Friday in her annual State of Education Speech.
          "We must abandon our obsession with the WASL (Washington
Assessment of Student Learning) and get the focus back on learning. . . ."




          Saturday, November 15, 2003
          Bergeson says we need to get over WASL obsession

  By GREGORY ROBERTS
  SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

  Ten years after the state launched ambitious school reforms, it's time to
shift the emphasis away from achievement-test scores and back to actually
educating students, Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson
yesterday told school board members from across Washington.

  But that doesn't mean abandoning the Washington Assessment of Student
Learning -- the standardized exam administered annually under the 1993
reform legislation, she said.

  Instead, educators must explain the links among the test, the capabilities
it is designed to measure and the importance of those skills to success in
the new economy -- in a way students can understand, Bergeson said in her
annual State of Education speech.

  "They know all about the WASL, and they think we adults are obsessed with
it -- which we are," Bergeson said. "But they don't know why they have to
take the test.

  "It is a tool," she said. "It is not the goal. We must abandon our
obsession with the WASL and get the focus back on learning."


  --
          The item below is from the SPI, RFP, No Child Left Behind Act of
2001, Public Law 107-110, Title II, Part B, November 4, 2003, Mathematics
and Science Partnership Program


          Page 4, II. Program Description


          "A. Purpose: The purpose of this program is to increase
participation in mathematics and science courses and achievement on the WASL
particularly by under represented student populations identified in
Washington States' ESEA plan."

  --

  Donald C. Orlich
  SMEEC
  PO Box 644237
  Pullman, WA  99164-4237
  (509)  335-4844   FAX (509) 335-7389




--
Donald C. Orlich
SMEEC
PO Box 644237
Pullman, WA  99164-4237
(509)  335-4844   FAX (509) 335-7389