Washington Roundtable

Washington Legislative Session Begins Today!

maureen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:22:27 -0600

As many of you savvy citizens may know, with the New Year comes the convening of a new legislative session. Be sure to monitor the legislature’s votes, hearings and meetings at their website and, of course, stay tuned to the Hall Monitor for the latest news on Washington education bills, policy updates and decisions.

Right now is a crucial time to be informed and for good summaries of the issues associated with this year’s session, particularly in education, be sure to check out today’s Seattle Times and the Washington Roundtable.

Setting a Low Bar Doesn't Help Students

barbara — Fri, 18 May 2007 11:53:00 -0500

This is a wonderful opinion piece written by Mike Ilyall of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. He notes, correctly, that standards need to be high so our children can succeed in a global world. This is true for all students, but especially so for minorities and students from low-income families who have may not have access to educational perks or even parent support.

Ilyal admits that he doesn't know of the WASL is the answer, but he does know that setting the bar low so all students can receive a high school diploma, and make everyone happy for a day, is not the answer either.

Two-Week Chat on Global Competitiveness

barbara — Wed, 16 May 2007 18:14:00 -0500

Here is a link to an e-mail exchange on that was posted on the Laurel Group Web site.

In it, Susannah Malarkey (Executive Director of the Technology Alliance, Ken Myer (President and CEO of the WSA, and John Drescher (Executive Director of TechNet Northwest) engaged in a nearly two week long email discussion about what they see as the crucial issues that might impact the business and technology communities in the Puget Sound.

It's a good read.

One Diploma for Dummies; One for Geniuses.Not Going to Happen Here.

barbara — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:56:00 -0500

efore I sign off for Mother's Day weekend, one footnote from the State Board meeting yesterday. I missed the discussion on the group studying the state's high school graduation requirements. At 19 credits and requiring only 2 credits of math, ours are some of the lowest standards in the nation.

Hopefully, this group will fix that.

Eric Liu, the chair of this committee, said that his group is looking at making the diplomas meaningful not only for college-bound kids, but for those that want to go into the trades as well. But one idea that they've dismissed for now is a tiered diploma system. In other words, one diploma for college-bound kids, one for those interested in technical and trade options, and those who don't know what they are going to do after they flip their tassels from one side to another and exit the stage.

State Board Gives Its Approval to American Diploma Project

barbara — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:09:00 -0500

After about an hour of debate this morning, the State Board of Education gave its approval to join the American Diploma Project. Now it's just up to Gov. Gregoire, OSPI Chief Terry Bergeson and the business community (I'm unclear if this means the Washington Roundtable,or top businesses in the area) to sign the paperwork and send it to Achieve, which basically runs the program.

A bit about ADP. The coalition consists of 29 states (30 if we join) that work toward four main goals. One is to align high school standards and assessment required for college or work. Administer a college- or work-ready assessment to students that is aligned to state standards. Require that all students, college-bound or not, take tough courses in high school. And hold high schools accountable if they don't achieve the above. Post-secondary schools (read colleges or CTC) are held accountable for the success of the students once they get there.

Now there were some good questions in the debate, that eventually turned in ADP's favor. First, how exactly does one hold a high school or college accountable? That question was really never answered.

There was some debate on preparing all kids for college (as one board member read it). I guess I take issue with that comment since all kids have to take something beyond high school now if they want a high paying job. That might mean trade school or a four-year degree. But today, a high school diploma alone will not guarantee a family-wage job as it did in my generation.

I guess a few years back, both Gregoire and Bergeson dismissed ADP, which I still don't understand. My sense was that ADP was too pushy. Okay, back to the last part of the board meeting, and I'll sign in again this afternoon.

Gov.'s Letter After Signing 6023

barbara — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:51:00 -0500

For those of you that haven't read it yet, here it is.

Gov. Gregoire Signs Legislation to
Delay WASL Requirements

OLYMPIA - Governor Chris Gregoire today signed into law a measure that will delay until 2013 the math and science portions of the WASL required for high school graduation.

“We will not penalize students when the education system has not prepared them to meet state standards,” said Governor Gregoire. “If we want our students to succeed, we must improve our education system and give them the tools to succeed. We know that strong state standards can work, we’ve seen vast improvements in reading and writing and, with targeted assistance for teachers and students, we will see vast improvements in math and science.”

The WASL math requirement was to take effect in 2008 and the science requirement in 2010. The legislation delays both the math and science requirements until 2013. The class of 2008 must still meet the reading and writing WASL requirements in order to graduate. Schools will continue to provide tutoring and other literacy programs to improve students’ reading and writing skills and Governor Gregoire has made improvement of math and science education a top priority in this year’s budget.

Governor Gregoire vetoed sections of the bill that would have replaced the math and science WASL with “end-of-course” exams in math and science, created appeals panels to bypass state standards and exempt some English language learners. She also vetoed the emergency clause that would have made the bill effective immediately.

Under Governor Gregoire’s plan, schools will continue to provide targeted assistance to improve students’ skills and help them meet state reading and writing standards, including:

A stronger focus on reading and writing for schools that have large numbers of student struggling in these subjects;
Working with parents to help them partner with their student’s school to get the help their student needs;
Reviewing and updating student learning plans to make sure they include all of the classes and other assistance, such as tutoring, to keep students on track for graduation; and
Investments in additional learning opportunities for students.

Governor Gregoire also detailed plans to help students meet state math and science standards, including:

Stronger accountability throughout the entire school system;
A study of alternative math and science tests, including “end-of-course” assessments;
Setting math and science standards so that they match the curriculum and the graduation requirements; and
Providing more professional development opportunities for math and science teachers.
“It is important that we show our students, all of our students, that we believe in their ability to learn and we believe in their ability to succeed,” said Gregoire. “Supporting our students means not giving up. Instead, we need to give our students the tools to expand their abilities, so that we help every student achieve more.”

Senate Bill 6023, sponsored by Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Bothell), passed the Senate with 30 votes and passed the House with 56 votes. The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the Legislative session.

Response from Roundtable to Bill Signing of 6023

barbara — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:01:00 -0500

As expected, the Roundtable wasn't very happy with the sections that didn't get vetoed today in 6023. Here is their statement.

New law delays high school graduation requirements in math and science,
weakens accountability system

SEATTLE – May 8, 2007 – The Washington Roundtable today reacted with deep disappointment to Governor Chris Gregoire’s decision to endorse the majority of ESSB 6023. The new law delays high school graduation requirements in math and science and introduces a range of alternative options for students who do not pass the 10th grade WASL or elect to use a passing score on one of the previously approved alternatives such as the SAT and ACT.

“This legislation reinforces the fact that Washington state lacks a fundamental capacity to adapt and evolve in a meaningful way to ensure young people get the skills they need to qualify for family wage jobs,” said Steve Mullin, Roundtable president.

“We are very discouraged that, in the face of overwhelming evidence that math and science are the keys to innovation, our state has decided not only to delay these requirements until 2013 – which is far too long – but to set aside academic standards, which is exactly what is happening with nearly 20 alternative assessments that are not aligned with state standards,” Mullin said.

The Roundtable was particularly troubled that lawmakers approved this bill at the same time that they were approving well over $4 billion in new spending, including an additional $1.8 billion in K-12 education.

“The employers of this state simply do not believe that more money and less accountability is the formula for ensuring students get the skills they will need in the global economy,” Mullin said.

The Roundtable articulated its concerns with ESSB 6023 in a letter to Governor Gregoire on April 27^th. (If this link does not work, that letter is available on the Roundtable website at www.waroundtable.com under "Current News.")

Gregoire couldn't seem to make anyone happy today. Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe took exception to the parts she did veto.

WASL Bill Signed Today, With A Few Vetos

barbara — Tue, 08 May 2007 16:02:00 -0500

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.

Achieve's Report on Closing the Gap

barbara — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:42:00 -0500

In case you haven't seen it, here is Achieve's 2007 "Closing the Expectations Gap" looking at college and career readiness state by state.

Um, it's not going to be very encouraging reading for anyone living in Washington. Breezing through the report, Washington is scarcely mentioned as a state with aligned curricula to college, a coherent P-16 system, high standards for high school diplomas (we really need to get a four-year requirement on math, science and English folks, it's embarrassing) and accountability for schools to prepare their kids for college and work.

Anyway, happy browsing.

The Fate of the WASL

barbara — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:11:00 -0500

It will be interesting to see how the back and forth goes today.

Lawmakers are supposed to present something to Gregoire today, that might have "veto me" written all over it. But we'll see. I vote for a striker amendment that just delays math and science four and three years, and then call it good. We can address the rest of this mess next year, after focusing on end of course exams, teacher training, narrowing the math curriculum. So we'll have plenty to fight about next session.