Not sure how many of you had to suffer through the WASL last week, but here's just one comment: Standardized testing is a worthless waste of time.
Most standardized tests, especially the WASL, measure only one part of a student's skills: the writing. If you can explain, you can pass. This, however, leaves right-brained students in the dust. The question becomes, how effective can a state-wide test be if it only looks at the knowledge of, say, half the student population?
And now, "by 2008, the state will not allow students who fail to meet Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) standards to graduate."
As students, we do not deserve to be measured by a fill-in-the-blank test. We are all unique learners. And to take that a step further, graduation should have no connection whatsoever with a state-issued standardized test.
Our teachers have a much more intimate and accurate look at our learning abilities. They should be the ones deciding whether or not we're getting a diploma -- not some paper-pusher in some Olympia office.
I repeat: standardized testing is a waste of time. It should have no influence on our future, and especially not on whether we're going to graduate.
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