I appreciated our group activity this week, scoring 10^th grade WASL writing samples. It was good to see that with minimal training and a rubric in front of us, we could agree for the most part on assigning an appropriate score. Still, I find the nature of this scoring distressing, considering the miniscule amount of time that can, necessarily, be devoted to any one student. Though, ideally, students are getting additional training in classes, across subject areas—and a WASL (or “MAP” now) score cannot be representative of a student’s overall facility with writing.

This claim was underscored in The National Commission on Writing’s “Neglected ‘R’” report, and emphasized in class:  We need to consider multiple points of assessment. Though the Commission’s suggestions seem vague in places, this is one assertion I absolutely stand behind. Just as a single star cannot make a constellation in the sky, so a single assessment cannot create a true picture of what a student knows and can do.

References

The National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges (April, 2003). “The Neglected ‘R’: The Need for a Writing Revolution”. College Entrance Examination Board.

Image Credit

Optical: ESO/E. Helder; X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al. Retrieved from www.nasa.gov/ on 29 October, 2009.

I went to one of the presentations by Senators McAuliffe and Oemig, and I came away thinking that what they say sounds nice and makes the public happy to hear, but they don’t have anything specific to say except that “the system is broken.” “Thanks, but what can you do to help me?” is what I kept thinking.

I got the sense that Oemig does not understand how levies hurt poorer districts much more than his (Kirkland) and that McAuliffe is scattered in her thoughts sticking mainly to agreed upon talking points. However, both appear to want to help, and I appreciate this. At least they are listening.

Oemig really wanted the teachers to define what a “master teacher” is, but of course no one could do it well. Reminds of the definition of obscenity: know it when I see it. Felt like people trying to define their love of one artist over another: lots of feeling words and appreciation without any quantifiable data.

And Oemig is definitely a data guy. He repeated his desire for good data for teachers without naming what it is. All I know is that I’m inundated with data but receive very little usable information from it most of the time. Plus, I have to fight for so long for access to data that it’s normally useless by the time I get it.

I think I echo Ryan’s thoughts when he said, “it’s very easy to see a path to what the WEA feared all along–the good that made people like the bill will evaporate away a section at a time, and what we’ll all have left is onerous new certification requirements and more bureaucracy.” Everything suggested was followed by “but we have to find the money to do it” with no definites detailing from where the increased revenue would come.

I spoke once for about five minutes near the end of the session about the following items, each very briefly:

• the lack of trust in teachers and the collegiate certification process (thus so many extra requirements),
• attacking symptoms instead of diseases (i.e. adding certification requirements when not satisfied with the collegiate certification process instead of fixing the problem at the collegiate level),
• how schools are microcosms of the societies in which they reside,
• solving social ills must be alongside solving educational ills (pay now for the play pen or later for the state pen), and
• how time is critical for teachers (grading time, prep time, large class sizes require extra time, useless extras like state required culminating projects, etc.).

Anyone else seen the presentations?

What does the term “in need of improvement “mean? 

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), every state sets the goals that each school must meet.  If a school does not make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two consecutive years that school becomes identified for school improvement. Annual targets are established in reading and mathematics. To exit improvement status a school must make AYP in all groups for 2 consecutive years. (See below) NCLB requires that all (100%) students be proficient in both reading and mathematics by 2014.

All groups include:  All students, American Indian students, Asian/ Pacific Islander students, Black students, White students, Students  with disabilities, Students with limited English Proficiency (LEP), and Students from low income families.

What are the annual reading and mathematics targets (uniform bar) that all students are expected to meet?

What is Public School Choice? 

As a result of not making Adequate Yearly Progress, No Child Left Behind states that parents of children who attend schools that receive Title I funding may have the option to transfer their students to another school. The school district determines which schools are open for transfer based on two criteria:

• Students may not be transferred to schools not making adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years
• Students may not be transferred to schools that are at capacity due to fire and safety code regulations regarding enrollment

In Bellevue School District during the 2009-2010 school year, based on both these criteria, there are no schools available for public school choice.

Which Bellevue Schools that receive Title I funding did not make AYP?

• Ardmore Elementary
• Highland Middle School
• Lake Hills Elementary
• Stevenson Elementary

Which Bellevue Schools that do not receive Title I funding did not make AYP?

• Bellevue High School
• Interlake High School
• Newport Heights Elementary
• Newport High School
• Odle Middle School
• Robinswood
• Sammamish High School
• Tillicum Middle School

Today in class we went over the different portions of the WASL, and example questions and answers. This was really helpful fro me, since I am new to Washington and had never seen or heard anything about the WASL until I started this program. I really liked going over the different questions and how they are graded because I was able to think of ways to implement practice in my classroom and hear others thoughts. Especially in the inquiry section, I thought of a lot of different ways to use the types of questions, such as in a final project, or as a quiz or test question.

I think all the questions were very valuable, and should be concepts that students know. I never learned this kind of thinking in high school, but we had to use it a lot in lab in college. It would have been very beneficial to learn and practice those kind of questions before I was expected to do it on my own in my college classes. I was already planning on asking the students to design their own experiments, and because of their presence on the test, I may do one every unit or so, as Jen suggested in class today.

OHS 10th Graders – what in the world happened with your Math and Science WASL scores?  Math 27.2%, Science 35.7% absolutely stinks. Is it WASL, is it the teachers, what is it? I’d like to hear from the students, not just parents and teachers, if there are any out there reading…what is wrong with this picture?

It’s mid-August and the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has just released Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test scores.  School districts across the state have been waiting for the results so that they can begin their task of notifying parents and students of individual student scores, as well as of the AYP status of their school.  But what does AYP mean and how does the status of Met or Not Met AYP impact our schools and our students? 

AYP stands for Adequate Yearly Progress and comes to us from the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.

NCLB requires the annual testing of public school students in reading and math. The intent of NCLB legislation is that all students will be proficient in reading and math by 2014.  For additional information on NCLB visit the US Department of Education ‘The Elementary and Secondary Education Act as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

In Washington State, proficiency is measured by the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), and AYP is determined by the following: 1) percentage of students taking the WASL reading and math tests; 2) percentage of students meeting the standards in reading and math*; and 3) the unexcused absence rate for grades K-8 or graduation rate for secondary schools.

*To meet AYP, WASL scores of all students, collectively, must rise to a certain level every three years, as well as scores for the subgroups of English Language Learners (ELL); students whose family incomes make them eligible for free-and reduced-price lunches; African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, and American Indian students; and special education students.

The table below is a visual representation of the 37 possible categories in which the district and individual schools need to show improvement in order to meet AYP.

As a result of 2009 WASL scores, Bellevue School District is one of 209 districts in Washington that did not meet AYP this year (out of 295 total districts).   Fifteen of our schools did not meet AYP.  There are ten specific areas where the district must improve.  The specific areas are:  

This list represents a modest success when compared to last year’s list, in that there are five fewer categories in which improvement is needed. For specific school information access the website of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

What are the legal consequences of not meeting AYP?

The impact of AYP is felt specifically by our Title 1 schools who receive federal Title 1 funds.  To qualify as a Title 1 school, 35% or more of its student population must be eligible for free and reduced-price lunches based on family income.  Bellevue’s Title 1 schools are Ardmore, Lake Hills, Stevenson and Sherwood Forest elementary schools, and Highland and Robinswood middle schools.  Parents of children in Title 1 schools will soon be receiving letters with more information on AYP and the actions their school will be taking to raise the achievement levels of its students.

Each Title 1 school is taking specific and innovative steps to address each student’s academic achievement and district Title 1 dollars are being used to support the work of these schools.

Although there are no legal sanctions in the NCLB law for schools that are not receiving federal Title 1 funds, the district is fully committed to ensuring that all students achieve at the highest levels.

What is the district doing to make improvements needed for all schools to meet AYP?

Under the leadership of new superintendent Dr. Amalia Cudeiro, all of Bellevue’s schools will be expected to improve student achievement in a specific targeted area, i.e., reduce the achievement gap, by a minimum of 10%. An Instructional Learning Team will be formed at each school to provide leadership in choosing a subject area for improvement and training teachers in strategies to help them reach the 10% goal.  Title 1 dollars must be used to meet AYP reading, writing and math goals.  More information will be provided once school starts and the Instructional Learning Teams begin to design and implement their school plans. 

For answers to your questions and links to more NCLB information, please email your questions to communityrelations@bsd405.org.

According to the Seattle Times, a majority of voters in Washington State now oppose making the passing of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or the WASL for short, a requirement for graduation.  It’s pretty funny because about eight years ago or so when George Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act had widespread conservative support, the conservatives in Washington also supported making passing the WASL a requirement for graduation (it when hand-in-hand with NCLB).  What happened?  Perhaps the conservative morons finally became enlightened to the arguments the liberals put forth once it was finally put to the test?

No, of course not.  The conservative morons found out that their children also turned out to be morons and – surprise, surprise – their children began to have difficulty in passing the WASL and thus graduating.  Oh, now the conservative hypocrites start to think that making the passing of a standardized test required for graduation is wrong.  After all, they did manage to get the state to drop its requirement of passing the math portion of the WASL back in 2008 once they found that their kids couldn’t do it.

Let this be a lesson to all.  Once the conservative bigots can’t meet the “high ideals” they so advocate, which are typically designed to hold minorities back and further impoverish them, they turn around and take back what they said.  It among the greatest of ironies.  How many times have we seen liberals do something like this?  Hardly at all, and this is because the liberal agenda is true, genuine, and justified.  The conservative agenda, however, is a sick and twisted one, and only racists, hypocrites, and morons are attracted to it.  The sooner our society figures this out and denounces conservative morons, the better.

School is out for the summer. For others, school is out for much longer than that. And not those who have graduated and are moving on to bigger and better things. For many high school students in Washington State, they are dropping out of school at rates that we should all be alarmed at.

According to a recent article reported by The News Tribune, the Tacoma area’s largest daily newspaper, Washington students have a 24 percent dropout rate. That means nearly one out of every four students will not see high school graduation anytime in the near future. That means they will continue to struggle to find sustainable jobs and careers that will keep them productive for the rest of their lives.

Things weren’t always like this. There was once a time when hardly anyone dropped out of school. A recent report by the nonprofit organization Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center found that the U.S. high school graduation rate is 69.2 percent. That is actually an improvement compared to statistics reported in 1996, where the graduation rate was 66.4 percent. If things are improving, there is still plenty of room to go up.

The catastrophic disaster that is our public school system should not come to a surprise to anyone. Conservatives have complained for years that public education is doing nothing but corrupting our children and not teaching them well enough for the real world. Liberals argue that the system is broken, not obsolete. Anyone who has actually attended the public schools know that anyone can get a good education there if they want to. I went to the public schools all my life and I turned out fine.

But not everyone has turned out so well. If nearly one quarter of students are dropping out before the twelfth grade, does this mean that our schools are hurting our children, or our children are hurting themselves? Parents play a very important role in raising children. If kids are not getting help from mom or dad or a guardian, who will help them?

President Obama made this past Fathers Day an opportunity to speak on the importance of fatherhood and being an active participant in a child’s life. He talked about his own father, Barack Obama Sr., who left his family when he was young. The President made sure he communicated to fathers and parents everywhere that we do our children a disservice when we ignore their needs. It was a message that certain people needed to hear.

But other than that, what else is to blame for the poor performance of our students? Let’s take a moment to look at the contentious issue of standardized testing. To many educators and students alike, the words “standardized testing” has become a curse word of the highest order. Students not performing well on standardized tests means less federal funding. It means your school is inadequate. It means children are being left behind. No one wants that.

Washington State has the WASL, which stands for Washington Assessment of Student Learning. When I was in fourth grade, my class was considered one of the early guinea pigs of the WASL system. Fourth graders like me during the 1996-1997 school year were tested on math, reading, and writing. If we passed, we were given a pat on the back and maybe a high-five. Today, tenth graders taking the WASL have slightly different stakes at hand.

If they do not pass all the sections of the WASL satisfactorily, they will not receive their high school diploma. Only after passing all the sections will they be able to graduate. Controversy has broken out because African, Latino, Native American and lower income students were disproportionately failing the WASL compared to their Caucasian and Asian counterparts. While achievement gaps are not a rare occurrence in schools, when graduation depends on it, there is reason to be concerned.

There is also controversy whether or not developmentally disabled students have to pass the WASL as well. As it stands, students with learning disabilities have to take the test. I am not sure about the latest developments regarding the WASL, but a lot of anger has poured out over the years just because of one little exam. This is not a small matter.

It seems fair to say that too much emphasis has been put on the WASL to assess whether our children are really learning. Former President Bush thought it was a good idea to create standardized testing as a way to inspire teachers and students to return America to its once former academic glory. There was once a time when the United States had the best public school system in the world. That is not true anymore by a long shot. Kids in Asia and Europe are achieving math and science scores that are making businesspeople nervous. If standardized testing is supposed to make us stronger, then we’d better hurry up and improve before the rest of the world surpasses us.

The WASL was originally meant to assess student learning, which is part of its name. It was not intended to be a benchmark for deciding who gets to graduate and who doesn’t. Like Affirmative Action, standardized testing has become the only solution to solve our problems, not one of the solutions. In an ideal world, teachers would have more freedom to teach their students the curriculum that they believe is right. When I was going to high school, teachers fretted about inspiring students to perform well on the WASL. Were they inspiring us to learn period? Not really. Just do well on a test. There is something not right about this.

It seems the culture of learning has disappeared from our country. The Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 inspired the U.S. to advance its teachings of science to kids. Since then, America became one of the best places to educate a child. During the late 90s and the inception of the 21st century, that has dramatically changed. This needs to be fixed.

But standardized testing will not do it alone. I have nothing against tests like the WASL, but when the government thinks it will solve all our problems, they are dead wrong. Students need a reason to go to school. Hopefully the election of an African American president will inspire at least some kids to work harder in school in hope of achieving something great in their lives. But the real responsibility falls upon the parents. They need to stop letting the television and Internet raise their children. They need to be the parents, not the media.

Hopefully if Washington State starts to downplay the importance of the WASL and give teachers and administrators more freedom to teach their students the way they feel is appropriate, progress will be made. If failing the WASL means no diploma, it is no mystery why 24 percent of students are dropping out of high school. They need to be encouraged, not discouraged by one little failure.

Learning is something that cannot always be quantified. Passing a test does not automatically mean you are ready for college or working in the real world. Passing a test means you can pass a test. Learning means you have retained information that will help you later in life and that you know how to apply that knowledge when the opportunity presents itself.

I’m sure our state government will learn better. After all, they are not immune to making mistakes themselves. And as the old saying goes: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And our lawmakers need to try again and reconsider what role the WASL should really play in our classrooms.

But for now, enjoy your summer.

You know, I tire of the commentators’ beef with Tiger Woods not winning every tournament he enters. Sometimes people just have a bad day or a bad few days. I think about this with a few of the students I would expect to easily pass the state test, and then they just have a bad day. It happens.

Tiger Woods just barely missing a few putts at the U.S. Open is like the kid who misses a couple points here and there and those putts and points add up. Bad days occur; they just do.

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum we have David Duvall who made more money in the U.S. Open this weekend than he has the last four years on the PGA Tour. I’ve had kids who haven’t passed a thing all year and then pass the state test. Sometimes good days happen, too.

The first baseball game in high school I ever played I had three doubles and a walk. Then I went 0 for everything the next two weeks. That’s how I got my nickname “O-fer” because each day my box score read “0 for 3″ or “0 for 4″ and so on. This is also how I became a pitcher instead of a fielder and hitter. But again, good days happen.

My point with this, which I have very slowly lead this post to, really is that I feel for the kids who barely miss a passing score on the state test and those who should’ve passed it and didn’t. My school–with no consideration of just a bad test day–forces students to take a reading and writing class for students who failed the state test (if those sections were not passed) or a remedial math class (if that section was failed). No questions. No exceptions. That’s it.

I guess I don’t like high stakes testing in the first place, but I also don’t like the idea that some kids are pigeon-holed based on a single measure. Maybe I’m just a case by case kinda guy.

Oh, and I bet you that Tiger comes storming back to win a few titles very soon. (He almost came back this weekend despite such a bad start to his tournament.)

Although I missed our class dearly, I have to admit that I had a great time in Olympia. I’ve talked a lot about “range finding,” and the best way to describe it is this:

We looked at the rubrics for the short answer questions on the math WASL. We looked to make sure the rubrics were fair and reasonable for 3rd-5th grade students.

It was a good experience because I think sometimes we teachers spend a lot of time blaming “the people in Olympia,” but everyone I encountered here had students’ success at the forefront of every decision they made.

Here are some photos from my trip — they’re not terribly exciting because most of what I did was a) confidential, b) eating, c) doing Pilates, or d) sleeping.

Olympia is home to Washington's capitol building

Now, although the domed building is called the capitol, the city of Olympia is called the state’s capital.

This is Capital Footwear, because it is located in the state's capital, Olympia. It is on Capitol Street, because the capitol building is at the end of the street.

I stayed further down the street, in the Phoenix Inn. The employees took very good care of me there.

This was my home for the last three days!

Here's where I wrote my blog posts to you all!

Waving from the giant bed

Keep your fingers crossed that I did a good job and that I’m invited back in the future!

Oh, finally, before we left, I had to determine the total time we spent range finding. Seriously — I was the official time keeper. If I kept time incorrectly, we wouldn’t get paid for the full amount of time we spent working! Remember the discussion we had about real-life problem solving in class last week, ladies and gentlemen? That’s what I was doing! I thought you might enjoy seeing the elapsed time problem I had to solve (I got it wrong the first time, but I fixed it!).

Show your work using words, numbers or pictures

(Note: I rounded a bit at the end at the request of our facilitator.)

###

Hi there!

I hope Ms. Helm told you I called this afternoon. I was surprised at how quiet the class sounded in the background. I hope you had fun with Menu Math — I can’t wait to see your menus!

Thanks again for your flexibility with the guest teacher craziness yesterday! I must say, I was more disappointed to hear of people spreading completely false gossip today than I was about anything I heard about with the sub yesterday.

I’m excited to share some exciting news with you tomorrow about our listening library! And don’t forget that tomorrow’s the first day of our Book Store!

###

Hello, ladies and gentlemen!

I miss you all dearly and will see you on Thursday. Remember, that will be the first day of our Wildwood Book Store!

I wanted to thank you for your flexibility today. I spoke with Ms. Brown and she said you did an excellent job of working with Ms. Campbell and Mr. Garrison today. I can’t wait to hear how well you do tomorrow, because Ms. Helm will be back!

I have been very busy, and it has been fun spending time with people who love math as much as I do. I also found out that some of my WASL questions made it as pilot questions on this year’s test, which was quite a surprise!

I’m off to read before I go to bed! I love and miss you!

###

Good evening from Olympia! OSPI is taking good care of me out here. I can’t really talk about what I’ve been doing, but there’s been good discussion, I’ve met some neat (if nerdy) people, and I defended ELL and SPED students this afternoon.

I hope to receive good substitute reports from you all, ladies and gentlemen! See you soon! Off to bed!

###

Our class is starting our WASLs tomorrow, so I thought I’d help you warm up your brain with these neat optical illusions:

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen! I love you all dearly!

###

When it works, I love it. When it doesn’t, like today, I just detest teaching. It is Monday, our schedule was changed, and the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (the dreaded WASL) starts tomorrow. All in all the students were nuts, and I was frustrated. To top it off one of the kids stole the lock from the lap top cart. Arrgh! That’s when a warm bath, some artism, and TBTL really helps. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I can always hope.

In what will hopefully be good news for the kids in my home state of Washington, Gov. Gregoire has removed WASL Math testing requirements for students to graduate high school. For more on this particular story check out this link.

Now, you may be wondering what said story above has to do with the title of this particular post… well its not so much the words on that page that brought it up as much as it was the picture in the story. The picture depicts what looks to be middle school aged students with laptops on their desks in class. There’s no caption associated with the picture, so I can’t really say which school it was taken at or really deduce much of anything from it other than students have laptops and are using them in school.

I’m all for technology being used to help kids learn better, however I’m not too keen on technology being used as a replacement for the more traditional tools of writing and arithmetic even if it does speed things up a bit. Our society as a whole is, with every day, becoming more and more dependent upon technology. A perfect example of this could probably be found out on the street of any major US metropolis. Ask people on the street to do some simple division and multiplication problems and see how many ask for a calculator. What is to be said about students using laptops in English class? Will our children soon forget how to write and take notes by hand? Many people have already forgotten proper spelling and grammar thanks too spell and grammar checkers so it is certainly a possibility. I for one don’t intend to forget such things (and if you’re going to comment on my grammar and spelling, note that went out the window LONG before spell check ever showed up) and endeavor to keep them fresh daily.

JET is divulging my current position to the enemy. Supposedly my ally, he shamelessly blabs his giant mouth away. A treaty has been broken; the “CD for Silence” Treaty signed March 15, 2009. A CD was burned in return for the simple favor of keep their mouth shut. However, on this day, March 16, 2009, at approximately 10:25 this morning, the Treaty’s conditions were violated blatantly by JET.

He will pay. He will pay dearly for his fault. I pronounce war on JET. May he grieve enough to satisfy me.

Lolol, just kidding about the revenge part, but I was still a bit peeved. Slowly, something secret will be unveiled, much to my displeasure. Actually, I still wanna get back at him for this. I’ve got to stop it before it proceeds any further!!! And the CD part is true. I burned him a delicious little CD filled to the top (3 seconds left) of some of my favorite songs and some really stupid songs that I thought were entertaining. Anyways, back to the “Treaty”. I made him the CD and he does this for me in return?!?!? Grr. -.- 

But in the meantime, when I see the person I want to see, I innocently pretend not to know anything.

So, it’s WASL week; which means that people that don’t have to take the WASL can go to class at 10:30 AM! That’s THREE hours of wonderfulness!

Crap loads of homework to do. I shouldn’t be slacking off on the internet too much. My lower than usual grades aren’t shocking my parents anymore. To tell the truth, I’m ashamed of my self for having these grades. Usually, school hasn’t been a priority, but I’ve never had these kinds of grades before. It used to be easy, but high school is different, it’s challenging, it makes me not care, it makes me want to care, it makes me want to do something, sometimes not.

Today, one of my classmates in APLA was crying because she was stressed out because of school and she didn’t fill in one of the pages for free/reduced lunch for reduced AP tests. I think they’re like eighty-something dollars. I don’t remember, but I don’t even qualify for free/reduced lunch, so it doesn’t include me. Anyways, she was crying. She’s an emotional one, and she’s cried for the second time now during fifth period. But, it’s crying nonetheless. I feel I should care more about my education too. Math, as you all know is especially killing me. But because of the circumstances (teachers/work/etc.) makes me not care about it. And I should because I freaking have a C in that class. And there’s a test coming up, a partner one, where your partner is someone with the same grade as you, and I’m pretty sure I want a good partner… so that grade’s gotta go up.

As for now, I’ll try my best. 

がんばれぇ!

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning is a standardized test that I, as a tenth-grader, have to take in order to graduate. It’s stupid. The teachers hate it because it takes away a week of school and the students hate it because it’s boring for anyone who can form a complete sentence. It’s a product of No Child Left Behind. The schools who don’t do well get less money, but need more. I’m not a fan.

I hate the WASL. I hate, hate, hate the WASL.

I hate its stupid, utterly redundant questions that drive me crazy.

I hate the science portion that no one is ever really prepared for.

I hate its total 20-hour testing time.

I hate the idiotic state regulations attached to it — the ones that prohibit us from having anything but a nice, mellow book in the testing room.

I hate how the teachers hate it too. Just as much as the students, in fact.

I hate how it comes during the week after finals, so the sophomores in my school have a two-week anxiety attack.

I hate how making this list makes me feel small and ignorant, and how I realize that I’m not looking at the big picture.

I hate how the WASL inspires such hatred in me that I don’t even care that I’m not looking at the big picture.

I hate how those politicians who push the “big picture” conveniently forget insignificant details, like students.

I hate how our latest big-shot politician wants to replace the WASL with some equally hateful exam.

I hate how states use standardized tests like the WASL as some sort of inter-state pissing contest.

I hate how too many grade-level classes are taught to the WASL, instead of to the students.

I hate how no one I ask even knows what it stands for.

I hate how I had to Google it to know that it’s officially the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

I hate how I’m bored to death every year by hours of mind-numbing questions.

But most of all, I hate that I can’t even pull a Miley Cyrus and list what I love about it. Because, to be honest, it’s a test that not even a politician could love. And that’s saying a lot.