Congrats, education officials, you've weakened WASL standards

You could have knocked me over with a WASL test book.

My 10-year-old son received a letter signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire and Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson. "Congratulations!" it started. "... We are very proud of you, and you should be very proud of yourself."

Apparently, my son "achieved the state reading, writing and mathematics learning standards."

Here's the punchline to my son's letter. He is autistic in a self-contained special-education classroom with limited mainstreaming, can read some words, can add a little and can barely draw a straight line. Much as it pains me, I told my colleagues a few months ago, there is no way my pride and joy will ever meet state learning standards.

And then he did — or so they say.

Recently, a bright young acquaintance confided she didn't pass the fourth-grade math test. I couldn't bring myself to tell her my son, whose limitations she is aware of, nailed it!

I'm feeling a little hoodwinked.

I was an editorial writer before I was a mother. I drank the high-standards Kool-Aid way back in 1993 when education reform started. I was moved by my work as a tutor for an adult literacy program. I was stunned to learn my student with a third-grade reading level had graduated high school. If she had gotten help at 10 instead of 30, her whole life might have been different.

Since then, I have written scores of editorials supporting the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. I defended keeping standards high.

"The diploma has to mean something," I argued. Over. And over. And over.

As the stakes ratcheted up to become the threshold for graduation this year, I was persuaded to spike my WASL Kool-Aid with a little accommodation.

Sure, let's have alternative ways to pass the WASL. The students still have to meet standards, they'll just do it in different ways. So a kid who has test anxiety gets to show he meets the same high standards in a different way, in a portfolio of work.

Which is how my son took the test — by portfolio in the Washington Alternate Assessment System. It was a meticulously kept body of work, representing honest, hard effort and, indeed, progress. But it did not — repeat, did not — meet any common-sense interpretation of fourth-grade standards.

Turns out, in education's semantics wonderland, there are standards and then there are standards. Under No Child Left Behind policy, the federal government requires states to establish standards for special-education students. In Washington, special-education students have only to meet their own personal "standard" based on the goals in their annually revised Individual Education Plans.

There is no accountability to ensure these individual special-education "standards" aren't low-balled, although state officials say accountability measures are on the way.

OK. Let's get this straight. This stupid assessment doesn't change the worth of my kid, or any kid. He's still the nicest, most fun member of the family to be around and he's got great taste in music.

But what these tests should tell us honestly is whether a student meets one reasonable minimum standard of academic achievement — for all kids. Most can — with work and support. Sadly — and this is from one parent who struggles out of denial every day — some cannot. That's a fact.

"You don't want him to count against the school, do you?" was a question I heard more than once as I asked questions. Well, no, but I don't want him to artificially inflate the school's success rate, either. I especially don't want to let schools off the hook if they are failing younger versions of my adult student years ago, who, when given a chance, advanced quickly to ninth-grade reading level.

Most troubling to me is the larger public-policy implication of my son's letter. He goes in the "pass" column for his school, his district and the state. He is a supporting statistic in federal reports to show adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind program.

I hold this astonishing letter in my hands, and can't help but feel like a co-conspirator in a public sham.

Kate Riley's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is kriley@seattletimes.com for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com