I hate the people in the OSPI. Bergeson created the WASL in a vacuum and now the whole fucking office can't talk about anything else - if it's not on the WASL, it doesn't exist.

That includes history, civics, advanced math & science, literature, foreign language, and phys ed.

I'm sure that if Bergeson thought it could gain broader support for the WASL, they'd put ID on there.

Did she really say intellingent?

No, she didn't. Just my intelliNgent typing.
Fixed now.

Well, since nothing less than the Supreme Court of the US has ruled that Intelligent Design is nothing more than tarted up Creationism, you can't blame Bergeson for mixing the terms up.

I would have liked to hear a stronger condemnation than simply stating it isn't on the WASL. That is a bit of a weak response. There is all sorts of stuff that isn't on WASL that gets taught in classrooms.

Actually saying it isn't on the WASL is a pretty big condemnation, because if it isn't on the WASL, it does not get taught.

So it can join the ranks of arts, creative thinking etc all those things you can't test via multiple choice and are therefore educationally superfluous.

US Supreme Court didn't weigh in on Intelligent Design.

U.S. District Court in PA did.
The offending school board in Dover, PA didn't appeal to US SC because they got voted out before they had time to appeal.

Otherwise, SDA, I agree.

The thing is, that kind of decision is generally started at the local school boards and filters up. Insofar as I am aware, there is no school board at any K-12 public school district in the state of Washington which has made ID, or creationism, or Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, a part of the approved curriculum.

Hey, don't mock my religion, Geni!

My screensaver is Touched By His Noodly Appendage, an artist's rendition of The Great Spaghetti Monster giving life to Adam.

Of course, we all know that The Great Spaghetti Monster is invisible, but it's hard to depict that without visualizations.

Remember: Global Warming is caused by the severe lack and decrease of Pirates. Luckily, the recent pirate movies may assist in restoring the delicate balance by increasing piracy.

if i download them illegally, will that help make global warming stop too?

Soupytwist, Gdc, & other WASL-haters: I know you would like the government to pay for finishing school for your upper-middle-class kids, but you see, public education was supposed to be for the benefit of those poor kids who otherwise wouldn't get an education. And we recently discovered that, while we were funding band and art classes for your kids, we were graduating poor kids who couldn't read or do basic arithmetic. So we've re-prioritized, and decided to concentrate public education on basic skills, so you're going to have to pay for your kids' finishing school out of your own pocket now.

ok david wright, your reasoning is a little bit wrong. instead of just having band and art classes for the upper middle class kids, they are available for all students. I went to public high school for all my life, played in my school's band for as long as i could, and the whole time i never owned my own instrument, it was property of the school district. Since it has probably been a few decades from when you went to school, you may not know that the arts, foreign languages, and other electives are what make school interesting and worthwhile. Even though schools do graduate some students without needed skills, many less would even graduate if there were no arts in school. I do agree that having the WASL is important, because having basic math and english skills are necessary. But saying that the WASL is the be all end all is kind of dumb. how many professions require only the grasp of math and english?

Public education was supposed to provide us with a supply of compliant factory workers and soldiers, and teach the children of weird foreign immigrants the proper way to behave like Good Americans. It was never about poor kids reading, it was about poor kids sitting in rows and obeying.

Every year government compulsory schooling fails to deliver results for which it was never designed, and every year the people who believe themselves to be most failed by it demand more and more of it.

aside to person asking about illegal downloading - no, that will only keep the Internet cool, not the world.

the world needs pirates. or it will get to hot. and then Florida will be a nice place to dive to explore underwater communities ...

rAmen, brother. I have the FSM on my car. And holy Marinara, does it ever confuse people who have not yet been touched by the Noodly One.

May your sauces all be graced with Garlic, and the Sacrament of the Holy Thyme and Basil.

Aargh!

David Wright - you are so, so wrong!

The WASL doesn't tie to the learning requirments set by our legislature at all! The WASL doesn't test knowledge - example, if the majority of the students taking the WASL all get a question right, the question is not scored. It's thrown out - this is done to give the results nice curve. The same is true if most of the students get an answer wrong.

The basics for the "poor kids who otherwise wouldn't get an education?" Then why is it that the poorest schools have the lowest scores and are penalized for it? Or why the lowest scores in a given school can be dropped so as not to penalize the school? Statistically, it just so happens that most of the scores tossed out are from low-income, minority children. For example, our own Washington Middle School here in Seattle, where the lowest scores are from black students (who happen to be the only regular, not advanced placement, students in the school).

The WASL is a horrible test and the way it's administered is a joke. If we're going to base our curriculum around a test, it better be a good one, it better be administered in a fair and honest way, and it better be tied to the general learning requirements.