State works to improve reporting of WASL scores

Moses Lake schools see changes in final WASL scores from October

COLUMBIA BASIN — At the start of every academic year, school districts across the state receive the previous school year's Washington Assessment of Student Learning scores.

Every October, a final list of those scores are released.

Between the two release times, differences in scores have raised questions about the accuracy of score reporting and the merging of information between school districts and the Office of State Superintendent for Public Instruction, which tabulates final scores.

While school districts know some changes in their scores are likely to happen between the first and the final releases, a combination of factors can contribute to further improper scoring.

Keeping track of where students are taking the WASL if they happen to change schools, how many test booklets are administered to each student and making sure the names written on the tests match up with OSPI records are a few examples.

OSPI director of information technology Joe Egan has seen instances when a student writes their name on the test booklet as "Rob" when OSPI has that student recorded as "Robert," requiring more time for that student's data from the district and OSPI to be merged.

If a student changes schools or is administered more than one test book, when OSPI gets the tests back they will have more than one instance of the same student taking the WASL, OSPI media relations manager Kim Schmanke said.

OSPI allows a window between the first WASL test scores release prior to the beginning of the school year and the final release in October for school districts to do what is called merging of student data. Merging allows districts to make updates to student demographics and correct test data if more than one test booklet was administered to a student.

Gender, ethnicity and income demographics are important to report because OSPI looks at how those groups of students perform on the WASL and then places them into specific categories, Schmanke said. "So it's essential that students are properly coded when we do these calculations."

In the Moses Lake School District the 2004-2005 WASL scores were not properly transferred at the beginning of the school year from some of the schools to OSPI.

While some scores did not change all that dramatically after corrections were made, those at North and Discover elementaries did see significant increases.

In the first reports released from OSPI, North Elementary showed 79.6 percent of fourth-graders passing reading. When the final scores were released in October, that number shot to 95.1 percent. At Discover Elementary a 5 percent difference was reported in fourth-grade reading, bringing the final tally to 95 percent of students passing.

Michelle Price, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction with the MLSD, said the schools with the greatest changes appear to be those that have Life Skills classes for special needs students; North Elementary has two such classes.

Life Skills students are not required to take the WASL because of their special needs so they take a different test called the Washington Alternative Assessment System, but were reported as not having taken the WASL which affected scores, Price said.

"This year it took us two days longer than previously and we're looking to address that this year," Egan said of reporting WASL scores. "Right now we're working on streamlining the whole system and creating a better Web site to do merging."

Superintendent Rich Graham with the Ritzville School District has not noticed a problem with score reporting in his district, although he would like to see more consistency with how WASL scores are reported.

It would be more accurate to compare the same group of students the last time they took the WASL instead of comparing scores year to year with a different group of kids coming through the system, Graham said.

Andi Sperline, director of curriculum instruction and assessment with the Ephrata School District, said the only real problem encountered with this year's WASL scores was that at least one student was reported who did not actually attend school in the district.

"We're just trying to do a thorough job of making sure data is correct at the school level," Sperline said.

To help improve the scoring system, OSPI strongly encourages districts to make student test and demographic updates in August before the first release at the start of the school year.

As not all districts are able to make that deadline, more time is given for corrections to be made until the October final release.

By law, the state is required to publicly report WASL scores prior to the start of the school year and it would not be fair to allow districts only one opportunity to report their scores as student demographics can change, Schmanke said.