WASL - required test, or child oppresion?
 

So, we're doing debates now. My friend is on the subject of the WASL (he can't remember whether he's pro or con). Anyways, I never really wondered about this particular debate, but thinking about it, it's quite an interesting subject.

Anyone who wants to debate this, and help my friend, may go right ahead.

It would help if you explained what a WASL is and some general information about it possibly including a link to an article or something on the subject.

Oh, gladly. I apologize; I forget that there are people outside of Washington. Anyways, WASL stands for Washington Assesment of Student Learning. I have yet to find a link to it that has any good information, but when I do have it, I'll edit it into this post.
Edit: Here it is (stupid computer wasn't fast enough to get to it, so I had to post this in the meantime):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing...udent_Learning

Anyways, it's something that I've always been opposed to (being a student), but never knew that it was open to debate whether or not it should exist.

Personally, I don't care for it. It asks you if you know certain questions, yes, but it only asks you THOSE questions. No working out the problems, no explaining your answer, just the answers. That doesn't exactly look for the ability to work out the problems, and, in that regard, are rendered useless in terms of finding out where we are intellectually.

Standardized testing as a requirement for graduation is relatively common, from my understanding. Washington state is just new to the program and still trying to work the bugs out.

I moved to WA just before 10th, which just happened to be the year the WASL was first introduced. My personal experience with the test was that it was a very poor assessment of my abilities. You see I failed the writing portion because I was advanced enough to present my point without following their preapproved form-letter style. Two years later I passed both AP English tests with a 4 out of 5, giving me all the college credits I needed for my engineering degree.

As my youngest brother is still in school in WA, I can say that the WASL testing has improved somewhat since then, but still seems to be lacking in accuracy.

However, I see this as a reason to improve the testing rather than an excuse to eliminate it. The high school I attended (South Kitsap High, largest in the state, which is apparently a good thing despite not having room for that many students) has a fairly consistent 2/3's graduation rate in its 3-year program. Something needs to be done to improve that, but you need the testing in place to show what improvement is required first.

Just my two cents,
-Anim

Okay, I'm still in school in WA. As a student who just saw the law that makes Every single grade take the WASL, I can say it is completely stupid.
69% of students at my school fail at least two of the Math, Reading, Writing, and Science WASLs. 85% fail at least one. Lawmakers decided it was a good idea to make passing the WASL a requirement for graduation. That year, they had to post-pone the requirements, there were so few students who passed all four. There have been some improvements, mainly in the teaching style now follow the WASL question procedures. Sure, WASL test scores are up, but every other standardized test in WA is down. Just my thoughts on the issue.

~Keien

You see? Everyone CONFORMS to the WASL, and therefore aren't taught stuff that can be creative or helpful, and instead follow one pattern. Think about it; what if Stephen King was only ever taught to write in essay form?

That's how standardized tests are. It works like that with Kansas Assessments and ACT/SAT tests. There are things that you need to be taught for the standardized tests and then a few things that teachers want to teach you. Standardized testing as a rule is flawed because not everyone has the same mental capabilities. While they might know the material on the test, there are multiple factors that would cause them to do badly. Most standardized tests I've experienced are 95% multiple choice, if not 100% so yeah, no real room for explaining your answer. Plus you can't measure someone's ability to do well just 'cause they got a 33 on the ACT, or maybe they can do great at a few things that they might not get to do because they got a 24. Standardized tests as a whole are a flawed basis (along with plenty of other things in the education system) for measuring intelligence but its the most accurate(/cheapest?) they can come up with without writing a test for each individual student.

The fact that its used as a graduation exam, however, is pretty iffy. Those should be left to the individual classes if you ask me.

These tests are the best example I've seen for what's wrong with the education system. I mean it works, kinda, on a few people, but on the whole doesn't prepare or teach you much of what you'll need when you get out of it. I don't remember 3/4's of the stuff I learned in my K-12 schooling.

It focuses too much on knowledge. That's not to say that it shouldn't give any knowledge at all, but they need to find a way to do it that encourages their students to think, and reason. I should not have been able to make in through high school with good grades on 3 hours of sleep a night. I did though. Very easily.

I have similar issues, I really don't try in school and make excellent grades, without doing my homework until the class before it's due, and never studying for tests. I think that it should be harder, but looking at people struggling to do the most basic and straight-forward thing is rather sad.

In terms of standardized testing, I think that it really doesn't work. They are almost all multiple choice which means that you have to be lucky, not smart. For example, I took a math MAP test at school because it was required. We take this same test around 2 times a year, usually I score around a 245-255. This time I scored 287. I didn't recognize half of the things on the test, so I was guessing on most of the stuff. On top of all this I was sitting there eating a Reese's and drinking some type of soft-drink. I'm a good test taker, but a significantly higher score when I was guessing on 2/3 of the questions is just sad.

Another problem that I have with standardized tests is that they make schools too concerned with them. Most schools spend more time going over what will be on the test so students will do well on them then actually trying to teach the student how to think properly. It doesn't really help that No Child Left Behind does most funding based off of test scores.

Some students are also bad test takers. They know the material when they need to apply it, but tests get them so worked up that they can't concentrate and then they score low. This significantly hurts them because class grades are often weighted (although I have never understood why), and then the poor test scores bring their grades down to something that does not represent what they know. When these students take standardized tests it has an even larger impact. They do poorly, even though they know the material; they just can't concentrate. Most colleges look at test scores quite a bit, so they see a student with poor test scores, and grades that back up the image that they are a poor student.

I remember reading an essay last year about how the school system needs a massive amounts of failings of students to make the school system get better. It was basically saying that if we don't deviate from the standard, and fail students who don't make it we will maintain a good standard that isn't in constant decline.

Overall, I think that we need to have some standardized way of comparing students and separating the better ones from the worse ones. I just don't think that we have found it yet.

These numbers don't really mean anything unless you know that I think its 230-240 is normal for our grade and 250+ is considered pretty good and I generally score around 260 and people are like wtf at that. 287 is ludicrously high. I think I remember someone saying its the highest they've seen or something crazy like that. Just another sign of why standardized testing is stupid: Everyone got all exciting over a kid who is good at guessing. And pretty smart, but it wouldn't get him a 287.