School News
Goodbye WASL, hello HSPE
Published on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 by Sara BruestleRead More School News
Sophomores from across Washington state took a new graduation-assessment test this week.
The state replaced the WASL with two new tests: the Measurements of Student Progress for grades 3-8 and the High School Proficiency Exam. The WASL was the state's primary assessment of student learning from spring 1997 to summer 2009.
The new tests are shorter than the WASL, but are still based on state standards. Instead of eight days of testing, the HSPE and MSP take only five days.
“There was a lot of concern through educators and parents about test fatigue [with the WASL],” said state Superintendent Randy Dorn. “I had a parent come up to me and say, ‘Why are you testing my fifth-grade daughter about the same amount of time it took me to take the bar exam to become a lawyer?’”
Reading, math and science is tested in one day instead of two with the WASL. For now, writing is still tested in two days.
Jade Perry, a sophomore at Meadowdale High School, said she doesn’t like the WASL or the HSPE, but that it’s easier to focus while taking the HSPE test.
“There’s not as much writing, so you’re not as tired,” she said. “And because you don’t need to write as much, you can pay attention more.”
However, some test administers say the HSPE is still too lengthy of a test.
Geoff Bennett, assistant principal and HSPE coordinator at Edmonds-Woodway High School, plans to report to the state that the reading assessment needs to be even shorter. He said a lot of students at Edmonds-Woodway needed an extra hour to an hour and a half to complete the HSPE.
“For kids to have to stay focused and work hard on something for more than three hours, [they’re] going to fade a little bit,” he said. “It’s difficult to imagine a kid being as razor sharp after three hours than they could be maybe in an hour and a half.”
In addition, some of the types of questions asked in the state assessment have changed. The tests now have fill-in-the-blank questions and no longer ask extended-response or essay questions.
“There was a lot of concern that kids that were really good math students were getting knocked down in their grades in math because they weren’t real good writers, so we shorted the extended response down to a short response and multiple choice,” Dorn said. “We believe it’s a better test, and [that] it’s more efficient.”
Ryan Budnick, a sophomore at Edmonds-Woodway High School, said he likes that the HSPE asks more multiple-choice questions than the WASL did. He said he’s better at answering multiple-choice questions than he is with essay questions.
“It was still challenging, but I felt better overall than I did last year with the WASL,” he said. “I wasn’t too stressed out about it this year.”Students in the classes of 2010-2012 must pass a reading and writing assessment to graduate. If a student has already passed either of the assessments via the WASL, they won’t need to take the HSPE for that assessment.
Students graduating in 2013 will be the first to be required to pass reading, writing, math and science assessments.
Regardless of the format, the assessments will continue to be rigorous in helping schools identify the areas in which students are successful and also struggling,” said Edmonds School District spokesperson Jennifer Piplic.
The HSPE and MSP are scheduled to go online in the next few years.
The state plans to test about 25 percent of students in grades 6-8 in reading and math online in May. Seaview Elementary in Edmonds has volunteered to give the online test to its sixth-grade students.
About 25 percent of high school students are to be tested online in reading, writing and math in 2011.
Moving the MSP and HSPE online will bring the state’s testing system to the 21st century, Dorn said.
Not only will it save resources, these days, children are more tech savvy than ever, he said, so it seems only logical that the state’s new tests would go online.
The state’s sophomores were tested in reading on Mar. 16 and writing Mar. 17-18. They’ll be tested in math and science in mid-April. The testing window for the MSP is May 3 to June 4, about a month later than the WASL.
For more information on the new tests, go to http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/default.aspx.
The state replaced the WASL with two new tests: the Measurements of Student Progress for grades 3-8 and the High School Proficiency Exam. The WASL was the state's primary assessment of student learning from spring 1997 to summer 2009.
The new tests are shorter than the WASL, but are still based on state standards. Instead of eight days of testing, the HSPE and MSP take only five days.
“There was a lot of concern through educators and parents about test fatigue [with the WASL],” said state Superintendent Randy Dorn. “I had a parent come up to me and say, ‘Why are you testing my fifth-grade daughter about the same amount of time it took me to take the bar exam to become a lawyer?’”
Reading, math and science is tested in one day instead of two with the WASL. For now, writing is still tested in two days.
Jade Perry, a sophomore at Meadowdale High School, said she doesn’t like the WASL or the HSPE, but that it’s easier to focus while taking the HSPE test.
“There’s not as much writing, so you’re not as tired,” she said. “And because you don’t need to write as much, you can pay attention more.”
However, some test administers say the HSPE is still too lengthy of a test.
Geoff Bennett, assistant principal and HSPE coordinator at Edmonds-Woodway High School, plans to report to the state that the reading assessment needs to be even shorter. He said a lot of students at Edmonds-Woodway needed an extra hour to an hour and a half to complete the HSPE.
“For kids to have to stay focused and work hard on something for more than three hours, [they’re] going to fade a little bit,” he said. “It’s difficult to imagine a kid being as razor sharp after three hours than they could be maybe in an hour and a half.”
In addition, some of the types of questions asked in the state assessment have changed. The tests now have fill-in-the-blank questions and no longer ask extended-response or essay questions.
“There was a lot of concern that kids that were really good math students were getting knocked down in their grades in math because they weren’t real good writers, so we shorted the extended response down to a short response and multiple choice,” Dorn said. “We believe it’s a better test, and [that] it’s more efficient.”
Ryan Budnick, a sophomore at Edmonds-Woodway High School, said he likes that the HSPE asks more multiple-choice questions than the WASL did. He said he’s better at answering multiple-choice questions than he is with essay questions.
“It was still challenging, but I felt better overall than I did last year with the WASL,” he said. “I wasn’t too stressed out about it this year.”Students in the classes of 2010-2012 must pass a reading and writing assessment to graduate. If a student has already passed either of the assessments via the WASL, they won’t need to take the HSPE for that assessment.
Students graduating in 2013 will be the first to be required to pass reading, writing, math and science assessments.
Regardless of the format, the assessments will continue to be rigorous in helping schools identify the areas in which students are successful and also struggling,” said Edmonds School District spokesperson Jennifer Piplic.
The HSPE and MSP are scheduled to go online in the next few years.
The state plans to test about 25 percent of students in grades 6-8 in reading and math online in May. Seaview Elementary in Edmonds has volunteered to give the online test to its sixth-grade students.
About 25 percent of high school students are to be tested online in reading, writing and math in 2011.
Moving the MSP and HSPE online will bring the state’s testing system to the 21st century, Dorn said.
Not only will it save resources, these days, children are more tech savvy than ever, he said, so it seems only logical that the state’s new tests would go online.
The state’s sophomores were tested in reading on Mar. 16 and writing Mar. 17-18. They’ll be tested in math and science in mid-April. The testing window for the MSP is May 3 to June 4, about a month later than the WASL.
For more information on the new tests, go to http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/default.aspx.