Policy Update: Washington: Working in Harmony

Vital Statistics
296	Public school districts
1,971	Public schools
991,000	K-12 enrollment
22.5%	Minority students
16%	Children in poverty
11.1%	Students with disabilities
$5.6 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

The Commission on Student Learning, which was created by the state's 1993 school reform law and is scheduled to be disbanded in June, completed its proposed design of the system in October and specific legislative language to implement it in December.

The plan also proposes that the commission be kept alive and given oversight of the accountability system.

The commission has spent several years on such tasks as: identifying the knowledge and skills that students should learn at school; developing assessments to measure student achievement against those standards; establishing a school accountability system; and developing a proposed "certificate of mastery" that would eventually be required for high school graduation. So far, the group, whose members were appointed by Gov. Gary Locke and the state school board, has developed curriculum frameworks in reading, writing, mathematics, and listening to complement the state's standards.

The first test of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to be pilot-tested and then required was the 4th grade reading assessment. In the 1997-98 school year, 56 percent of 4th graders met or exceeded the reading standard, up from 48 percent in 1996-97.

Scores in math and listening also posted impressive gains. Thirty-one percent of the 4th graders met the math standard, about 10 percentage points above last year. Improvement on the listening assessment--which tests oral comprehension--posted a gain of 9 percentage points, to 71 percent of 4th graders meeting the standard.

Writing was the only area to show a drop. About 37 percent of 4th graders met the writing standard last year, down from 42 percent in 1997.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson says the state education office will be studying the writing results for clues to how scores could be improved.

"Kids wrote more prolifically this year, but the writing 'prompts' were tougher. Last year, the students retold a favorite story, and this year they had to create one," she said in a 1998 speech. "They also had to write a persuasive letter instead of a description."

Her office has also started a math institute to support staff development and curriculum research to help teachers, students, and parents. Last year, only 20 percent of 7th graders met the math standard, while 31 percent met the standard in writing, 38 percent met the standard in reading, and 80 percent met the standard in listening.

Marc Frazer, the public-affairs director for the commission on learning, says the results for 4th graders are the fruit of clear academic standards.

"We are seeing a cultural change in schools throughout the state. Schools are updating their curriculum and spending priorities; teachers are working in teams to share best practices. Having clear targets has made a big difference," he says.

More comparative information is becoming available, too. Last September, Bergeson's World Wide Web site began posting school and district assessment averages.

The statewide assessments will be an important tool for judging school performance, but schoolwide and districtwide averages on the tests are not meant to be the major criteria for accountability.

Instead, the accountability system would emphasize districts' and schools' progress toward helping students meet the state standards.

For example, the commission's plan for K-4 reading accountability, which the legislature approved with few changes in its reading-accountability law last session, directs school boards to set three-year plans for reducing the number of 4th graders who don't meet the reading standard. Each district must shrink that achievement gap by at least 25 percent over three years.

The plan for an overall accountability system, which the commission was to submit to the legislature before the start of the 1999 session this month, follows that pattern.

The system is designed to highlight student achievement and the improvement of teaching and learning, Frazer says. But it also recognizes differences in student populations and emphasizes such considerations as local control and the need for continuous improvement, he adds.

If, after three years, a district's school assessment results fell below the state targets, the state would work with the district on a remedy. Frazer underscores that the state's review might find low-scoring schools that deserved praise rather than censure, because they were doing better than expected in the face of educational liabilities such as high student turnover or poverty.

Above all, the task force called for multiple measures to judge a school's performance and for reliance on professional judgments, not just numbers. "Numbers alone can't [sum up student learning], and there's broad agreement that nothing can replace sound judgments in making accountability," Frazer says.

"Hopefully, that's the way it will end up being," Rich G. Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association, says of those nuances.

He says the National Education Association affiliate, whose president, Lee Ann Prielipp, is a member of the task force, is concerned that five or 10 years from now, people might forget that performance is not just to be measured by raw test scores.

Another concern among teachers is that the legislature provide enough money to help all schools prepare for the accountability system and to reward schools that do well.

The commission has recommended that the state spend between $92 million and $123 million in the next biennial budget to help low-performing schools. Nearly all of that money would go for professional development and targeted assistance for low-performing students. Local school boards would create detailed plans for spending the money.

"It's a pretty ambitious assistance proposal," Frazer says. But the legislature will have to decide whether to fund the accountability system to that level, which would be added to the $52 million per biennium that the state has been giving out to support the 1993 reform law.

The state is spending $8.87 billion on K-12 education in its current two-year budget, which is for fiscal years 1998-99, nearly half the $19 billion overall state budget for the period.

The legislature's expected embrace of the accountability system contrasts with its inability to pass charter school legislation.

Despite support from Locke, a Democrat, legislators from both parties, and the business community, a compromise charter bill failed at the 11th hour, just before the 1998 legislative session ended last March.

A charter school bill passed in the House but was rejected in the Senate, "through an odd coalition of people opposed to charter schools who are associated with the left and people on the right who don't support [the concept] unless it's separated out from standards-based reform," says Chris Thompson, a spokesman for the governor.

Jim Spady, a well-known charter school activist in the state, says the bill was stymied by opponents in the Senate education committee.

But lawmakers did approve $8 million for Locke's proposal to set up a reading corps of teachers and volunteers to tutor young students, and $9 million in professional-development grants to improve K-2 teachers' skills in beginning-reading instruction.