WASL math needs job-skills connection
As I read the recent articles about the math section of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, I have yet to find the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction address its external validity. That is, does the test measure the basic math skills needed to function in our society?
This is how the test is being used, since it will be a high school graduation requirement. If you don’t pass the WASL, you haven’t got the minimum skills deemed necessary to function in today’s job market.
The test should be validated by giving it to a random group of successful workers in our job market. Theoretically, most should pass since they are productive workers and must have the math skills needed to function in our society. As it is, a large percentage wouldn’t pass.
Does this mean they should be fired since they don’t have these minimum math skills? This is exactly the logic that is being used by making this test a graduation requirement. You don’t have these skills; you’re not competent to get the high school diploma, so the doors to most jobs would be closed to you.
Even though the math skills needed for the test are basic, the reasoning skills are at a much higher level. All one has to do is try the math problems in the Sunday Spokesman-Review by Marilyn vos Savant. The math problems she presents take knowledge of math at only a sixth- or seventh-grade level, but most people can’t do them because the reasoning level is very high.
It might be argued that the jobs of the future will require these higher reasoning skills, but is that really true? Companies use technology for several reasons. Two reasons are to hire less skilled workers and fewer workers.
Recently I needed some roof trusses. Years ago an engineer would have designed the trusses, but today the truss is designed by a computer. My brother, a mining engineer, has commented that years ago he needed to know calculus inside and out to do his job. In the last few years he said that he really didn’t have to know calculus. Stick the numbers into the computer and it does the calculations for you. Now all of his thinking is done for him.
Just look at grocery checkers 20 years ago. Not much in the way of math is needed now since scanners do it all. Mechanics had to be true problem solvers to diagnose car problems. Today diagnostics are done by plugging your car into a computer and reading an output describing the problem with your car.
A third use of technology is to move the decision-making process up the power structure of the company. I know a retired accountant who used to love his job because he had to meet with all the other departments in his regional office and come up with the decisions to make this regional office succeed. The last 10 years, he says, he was a glorified bookkeeper since all he does is transmit the numbers to headquarters via computer where the decisions are now made.
We do need highly qualified mathematical people, and we are producing them in our educational system. But the jobs of the future are changing, and a lot of them take less reasoning skills and less mathematical skills. The WASL is off the mark in being a screening device for the skills needed in our society. We need a test that is valid.