WASL Bill Signed Today, With A Few Vetos

After all the last-minute fighting in the legislature this session, Gov. Christine Gregoire will finally be signing SB 6023 today. Just what parts she intends to veto, and she will veto portions of it, was unclear now. I'll find out for sure a few hours from now.

But from what I hear, she will be vetoing the part of the bill that sets an appeals process. It was a hasty, last-minute mess, and should be stricken. But there was a push by the Washington Roundtable to veto the entire portion of Section 2, which among other things, allowed students to look at other alternatives if they failed a portion of the WASLs once. Now, they can only access those alternatives, such as collection of evidence, after failing the WASL twice.

Apparently, Gregoire feared that by striking the entire section, it would become a free for all next session to delay or kill the science WASL. Under Section 2 of the bill, science is delayed to 2013 (along with math), but if that section is gone, science again becomes a graduation requirement in 2010.

Gregoire feared that would make the entire system vulnerable to another attack, similar to what we saw with reading and writing in the last two weeks of the legislative session. Unfortunately, the attack may occur anyway. Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, who showed the backbone of a salamander last session, is saying that she's going to lead a charge on reading and writing again next year.