Early results from the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) show local high school students are performing better on the statewide proficiency exam, which is required for graduation, than last year.

District officials said preliminary results from the WASL for the 10th grade showed a slight improvement over 2007 and are still well ahead of the state average. In the two required sections of reading and writing, the class of 2010 showed a 95 percent and a 97 percent pass rate, respectively. For the math section, which is not required for graduation, 76 percent passed. The math requirement can be satisfied by either passing the test or successfully completing two more math classes after the 10th grade.

Dan Phelan, LWSD chief academic officer, said “leading indicators” from the test results, which were released to the district June 16, show “slightly” higher scores.

This year’s graduating class, the class of 2008, was the first in which students were required to pass the 10th grade WASL sometime during their high school career. From the 1,890 district students in the class of 2008, only one — a senior from Juanita High School — failed to earn his diploma due to the exam. Nineteen other students failed to pass the written exam and 11 the writing section, but all those students satisfied the requirement through other state-approved alternatives.

LWSD spokeswoman Kathryn Reith and exam coordinator Linda Stevens cautioned, however, that the class of 2010 scores only reflect students who took the exam this school year and does not account for students who took the exam a year early as ninth graders. The said the numbers could reflect duplicate results or students who have since left the school district, further altering the final results.

“This is very premature for WASL data,” Stevens said, noting the district typically gets the data in August or September.

Statewide, 75 percent of 10th graders have already passed the WASL. Locally, the district’s overall pass rate is estimated at higher than 90 percent.

Nathan Olson, a spokesman for the State Office of Public Instruction, called the LWSD’s pass rate “pretty remarkable.”

“They obviously have a better curriculum (than other districts) for the test,” he said. “And they may have some targeted intervention and education plans that could lead to a higher result.”

Students first take the WASL in the third grade to assess average learning standards and identify individuals who need more help. Over 46,000 exam booklets were ordered, overall, for the district.

Students at BEST, Eastlake, Family Learning Center, Futures, International Community School, Juanita, Lake Washington and Redmond high schools took the exam.

While administrators said they were pleased with the results, Juanita High sophomores Nikolas Coker and Robby Ryan, both 16, said the decision to announce the results before the end of the school year was hard on some who didn’t pass. They wondered if the requirement to pass the WASL was fair or necessary.

“They test at a pretty low standard,” Coker said. “If you study, you’ll pass it.”

Ryan said the test unfairly placed too much of a burden on English as a Second Language students.

“Until they can master English, it’s kind of hard,” he said.

**District’s Wasl results for class of 2010**

Reading (pass rate): 95%

Writing: 97%

Math: 76%

Overall rate (estimate): 90% (statewide pass rate is 75%)

Sample questions

Reading Section:

In those days, during the 1950s, the big concern of ornithologists in our area was the wild turkey … The species was being degraded. It was extinction by dilution, and to the ornithologists it was just as tragic as the more dramatic demise of the passenger pigeon or the Carolina parakeet.

Which word could the author have used in paragraph instead of the word demise?

A. End; B. Growth; C. Surplus; D. Preservation

Writing:

Write a letter to the editor to convince readers to support your position on a current local, national or international issue.