Local students show steady improvement on WASL

by James Joyce III
Yakima Herald-Republic

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Yakima students have scored better than previous years on the reading and writing portions of the high school WASL. The results also show a lessening of the gap with other students in the state.

This is based on preliminary results that were released Monday by the district and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Earlier this spring, 1,273 Yakima public school students in the class of 2010 took the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. About 63 percent met the state standard in reading and 66 percent in writing.

Statewide, those numbers were 80 percent and 84 percent meeting standards in reading and writing, respectively. About 75 percent of the class of 2010 have passed both the reading and writing tests. The percent of Yakima students to pass both yardsticks was not available Monday.

Students in this year's graduating class were the first to be required to pass the reading and writing parts of the WASL in order to graduate. That is one of four high school graduation requirements. Students must also earn the required number of credits in each subject, complete a senior project and write a plan for what they will do after graduation.

During the past four years, the performance of Yakima high school students on the state tests has climbed steadily over previous years. For the 2003-04 school year, just 37.5 percent of Yakima 10th-graders met the reading standard and just under 40 percent met the writing benchmark. Those passage rates were as many as 27 percentage points below the state average in reading and more than 25 percent in writing.

"We're making excellent progress but there is still considerable amount of work that needs to happen," said Ben Soria, superintendent of Yakima schools.

Local results for the class of 2009 were not released Monday as school officials continued to sort through the data, according to Greg Day, director of academic assessment for Yakima public schools. Specific results for other Yakima Valley school districts were also unavailable Monday.

Both sophomores and juniors still have several more chances to pass the WASL or an approved alternative, including the August testing period. Students interested in the August retakes have until the end of June to register.

And although passing the mathematics portion of the WASL is not a graduation requirement until the class of 2013, it's still an area of concern for local educators.

In Yakima fewer than one in four students in the class of 2010 met the math standard. Statewide that number is nearly 47 percent.

"We were hoping the math numbers were a little higher. It would be great to get 50 percent (passing) on the first try," said Day. "What we are seeing is the literary piece is more developed than the math piece."

 

Registration information
To sign up for the August WASL testing, go to www.k12.wa.us/waslregistration or call 866-400-WASL (9275) between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. To register, students need their state identification number, which is located on the front of their WASL score report.

* James Joyce III can be reached at 577-7675 or jjoyce@yakimaherald.com.