So I've not been very much of an activist for anything. I have friends that don't think about some things the same way I do and I'm okay with it but they may not be. So I usually try to keep things pretty quiet (I don't like to stir the pot Ken). As we get closer to 2008, when the WASL is going to become a high stakes test that is mandatory to recieve a diploma, I'm going to get more and more verbal about it. I think I'll serve it up in small bites though. A little bit every now and then.
It has recently been calculated that the cost to the state and districts equals $60 million a year.
Schools are struggling to pay for these tests, extra labor for teaching "to the test" and even summer school boot camp for the WASL.
When my local school is trying to decide between PE and WASL prep I have a problem with the test. Kennewick school district cut 11 staff members this last year to help pay for it. Richland and Kennewick school districts in a protest of the mandatory test are planning on not giving the test to a majority of the "required" grades.
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I see your point, but I have a real problem with the numbers that are provided in the article. For example, that article states that it cost the district 420 dollars to pay 2 people to load the completed tests onto a truck. I'm sorry, but also according to the article, it took them 5 hours to do this work, that math works out to 24 dollars an hour. Why are they paying someone 24 dollars an hour to load a truck, that is probably more than most of the people who read this make. Shoot, I should go into business loading trucks for that district, if they will pay me 24 dollars an hour.
But, without getting into a big argument on this, as I'm not that educated on it (just skeptical of the numbers presented), I ask you this, how about on your next blog post you present a solution to the fact that the level of education kids receive now is less than what other industrialized countries supply their kids.
Also, as one last point, who loses here when the school districts don't administer these tests. It won't be your kids, but it will be those with the most need. Again, according to the article, if the school districts don't follow this test, they will loose 6 million dollars that has been earmarked for at risk students, so I say do the tests until a better solution is presented, because more money will be wasted and lost fighting this problem than could be gained in the future of our children.
There are so many rants and tangents that I could go on for this post / problem I'm not even going to start.
What I will say is that we are behind every other country becuase we are placing to much focus on MONEY and not enough focus on EDUCATION and CORE VALUES. Testing doesn't prove that one is educated in the least way. It offers only one measurable metric, which offers a flat picture into the mind of the student. Since what we focus on grows, we will continue to pump out flat minded students in mass and continue to fall behind many other countries....
Money is just one small tiny rant that I am presenting with this posting... Like I said in the blog I will present the complaints in small bites.
Most of my concerns actually lay with high stakes testing which will come in a later blog.
There are other tests, noodles, that can be given at a fraction of the cost such as stated in the article presented. A small group of people decided that the wasl would be THE test and on the board of that group of people is one of the makers of the test.
I think the WASL is a bad idea. It encourages schools to only teach what is on that test so that their students get high scores and everyone looks good. When, in fact, the students have focused all of their learning on a limited number of topics. It's not an all-encompassing test and while we can't all learn everything, even without restrictions, the focus on these tests has the end result of teaching our children less.
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