Hello Readers,

A bill to further delay the requirement that students pass a statewide math and science assessment to graduate has been introduced in Olympia at the request of Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn.

Two separate bills, HB 2915 and SB 6553, have been introduced in the state House and Senate, respectively.  The House version is attached.

WTIA opposes the further delay of the requirement that students pass a statewide assessment in math and science.

You can view information about this bill here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2915&year=2009

House Education Committee Chair Dave Quall has scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 10 am in the O'Brien Building on the Capitol campus. Here is a link to the House Education Committee members: http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/ED/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx

You can reach any of them by e-mail using this convention: lastname.firstname@leg.wa.gov

We encourage you to express your opposition to this proposal to committee members. Now is no time to be slowing down on the commitment to improving math and science education in Washington. Washington students have not performed well on statewide math and science tests.

However, it is also not a requirement to graduate. When emphasis was placed on reading and writing, scores improved and passage rates on the statewide assessment surpass 80% on both--plus the knowledge by students that they needed to pass the test to graduate.

Once the students who are now high school freshmen know they have to pass the test to graduate, scores will improve dramatically from the 45% passage rate in math now. We need a redoubling of efforts to ensure the new end-of-course exams test the right material and are diagnostic. Getting good teachers trained is certainly a challenge but one that needs to be done for the 2013 deadline.

Pushing it back to 2015, as the bills propose to do, simply takes away the incentive to get this done sooner rather than later. Our students cannot wait any longer. They are capable of doing well in math and science.