Spin Control: Lawmakers should try testing their rhetoric

Maybe state officials should stop wringing their hands over student testing and turn on their televisions. The Fox television network has an idea that might solve the current controversy over student testing and graduation.

This is not to say that Jack Bauer from “24” should be allowed to torture students until they pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Or that Simon Cowell from “American Idol” should get to make fun of those who perform miserably.

But Fox may be onto something with its new game show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” which asks adults to answer questions that elementary school kids have on their tests. The adults can’t, of course – otherwise the show would be no fun and last about five minutes.

But it does point out that adults are rarely as smart as they think they are.

Instead of coming up with some arbitrary score that determines whether a 10th-grader passes the WASL and gets to graduate, the determining factor should be “Are you smarter than a legislator?”

Each year when high school sophomores take the WASL, so should all 147 members of the Legislature. No reprieves, no excuses. Taking the annual test would be a requirement of elective office, just like filing public disclosure forms.

Of course, there are some smart people in there, even a few college profs. But face it, there also aresome IQs that aren’t much above the average temperature for March. That doesn’t keep these legislators from getting elected and passing laws for the rest of us.

If the pool of legislators seems too narrow, expand it to include the governor, every other statewide elected official, every editorial writer and columnist who has called for tougher school standards, and anyone who has railed against how little today’s kids seem to know or who starts a discussion of education theory with “Back in my day …”

Think today’s students can’t do math? Answer some trig problems, and don’t just write down a number. Show how you got it.

Complaining about their writing abilities? People who hire others to put out their press releases shouldn’t throw stones.

Here’s the deal: Any student who fails under the current WASL standard would get a reprieve, and a diploma, if he or she scored higher than half the legislators and others in the pool. Students who score lower would have to take the WASL over again to get a diploma.

Or they could go straight into politics.

Reporting in

As promised, Spin Control did check up on the mayoral candidates’ campaign finance reports, and both incumbent Dennis Hession and challenger Al French get little gold stars on their charts for filing them by last Monday’s deadline.

But when it comes to the contents of those forms, Hizzoner’s campaign might consider spending a bit more time on research. It lists the occupation for 14 donors as “N/A,” which means not available. Among those for whom an occupation didn’t seem available were Chris Marr, who gave $1,000, and Steve Eugster, who gave $150. You take that much money from a person, you ought to know something about him.

Hint: Marr is a state senator; Eugster could be listed as an attorney, or a truck driver.

Positively negative

Washington state Republicans are worried about Democrats going negative in the 2008 governor’s race. Yes, already.

State GOP Chairman Luke Esser bases that theory on a paragraph deep in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story about the prospects of a Chris Gregoire-Dino Rossi rematch. He sent out a press release proclaiming: “Aide admits Gregoire already planning negative campaign” after digesting the account.

The citation Esser offered said: “(Seattle attorney and Gregoire political adviser Jenny) Durkan acknowledged, as many Democrats have complained, that the 2004 Gregoire campaign did a poor job of defining Rossi to voters … Democrats say Gregoire won’t make the same mistakes twice.”

Because it’s always a good policy to check what’s left out in the ellipsis, it was nice that Esser provided a link to the story. Here’s what was between those two sentences in the P-I story:

“He ran what many analysts considered a smart, effective campaign. Statewide, he far outpolled the Republican candidates for president and the U.S. Senate.”

Wow. How mean-spirited can the Democrats get!

Esser said, however, that what he was really trying to flag was the term “defining Rossi.”

“That’s code speak for ‘We didn’t do enough hit pieces on Rossi,’ ” Esser said.

That may be true. It is rare that a candidate defines an opponent as someone who’s a good father, a snappy dresser or meticulous about mowing his lawn.

But it does seem a bit early – Rossi won’t even say if he’s running yet (wink-wink) – to start complaining about Gregoire going negative.