Bergeson announces assessment results

It's here. At 10 a.m., Supt. Terry Bergeson will discuss how seniors from the Class of 2008 met their assessment graduation requirement (WASL, alternative assessments/options) at a news conference in Renton…and I’m going to be liveblogging the whole thing.

Let’s get ready to rumble!

9:13 a.m. Gosh, it's a rainy day in Seattle (big surprise). Good thing i've got my coffee.

9:23 a.m. A couple of good editorials about this year's WASL scores have come out in the past few days, check'em out in The Oympian and The Longview Daily News.

9:25 a.m. Allison (stuck in traffic) and I have been musing over what color Tberg's suit will be for today's announcement. She says neutral. I say bright and colorful.

10 a.m. It's started. You go Shirley Skidmore!

10:01 a.m. Go here to watch the press conference.

10:03 a.m. I win. Tberg's wearing a bright blue jacket.

10:07 a.m. "This is the best prepared class we have ever graduated in Washington state." True.

10:08 a.m. Ha! I think Tberg's phone just rang during her speech.

10:10 a.m. "91.4 percent have met both reading and writing standards for graduation."

"70.53 percent have earned a certificate of academic achievement, meaning they also met standard in math."

10:12 a.m. Minorities and ELL students have done really well (all above 80 percent passing). And thankfully, OSPI at least tried to disaggregate the data on Asian students--a long time request.

10:15 a.m. Low-income kids passed at 86 percent.

10:17 a.m. Can't read the .ppt? Neither can I, but it's here on OSPI's site.

10:21 a.m. The dropout issue. Gulp. It disproportionally affects kids of color and low-income students. Big surprise. Guess, this is where the whole "relavance and relationships" concept comes in.

10:25 a.m. Tberg tackles the bigger problem of lack of credits vs. passing the WASL. This is what it looks like (from one study).

10:27 a.m. The student they just showed just passed the WASL. Cute.

And you can totally see Larry (our executive director) scratching his head. Debateably cute.

10:30 a.m. Tberg: "They've got Russian kids in their district...I mean Ukrainian...er...both?" Ha.

10:35 a.m. "2008 isn't the magic time. Skills are the magic time." Hmmmm....

10:40 a.m. Reporter: "But what about math?" duh, duh, duuuhhh!!!

10:42 a.m. Tberg: THE SCHOOL YEAR ISN'T OVER YET!!!! You can still take the WASL one more time. Come on, people. Do your research.

10:45 a.m. Well, that's a wrap, folks. Tberg slid in at just under 40 minutes. Congrats to all!

10:47 a.m. Time for cup of coffee #2.