Juniors hope WASL redo boosts scores

University High School junior Jillian Wilson passed the WASL she took last year. Now she’s taking the grueling test again this month.

Wilson is part of a small group of juniors who’ve decided to retake the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for a variety of reasons. Part of the inspiration is the reality that this year’s juniors will be the first to have their WASL scores posted on their high school transcripts.

The test is traditionally given to sophomores statewide each spring.

Though the standardized test won’t be required for graduation until 2008, some students failed a section and wanted to do better.

Wilson passed every section. She just wanted to improve her math score.

“Math has always been a challenge for me,” Wilson said. “So I took it for personal improvement.”

University officials pointed out that there’s no benefit of testing higher on the WASL once a student has already passed. Next fall, the state universities will offer a competitive academic scholarship to state students, which is only eligible to students who have passed the WASL.

“If they think it’s going to matter in terms of how they’ll be considered (for college admission), it does not matter,” said Terry Teale, executive director for the Washington Council of Presidents, a voluntary association of six state universities.

For many students, the decision to retake the exam was mostly personal.

University High junior Andrew Hall took the WASL last year as a sophomore and said he didn’t take the test seriously.

“I was much more worried about the ACT and my SAT,” Hall said. He ended up failing a section, which he wanted to redo.

“It was not required by the school; it was my own and my parents’ choice. I just want a better score. I don’t want to burn down bridges behind me. I want to keep my options open.”

Teale said students often do that with the SAT or ACT, the American College Testing assessment.

“It’s kind of a human condition to think that if you can take a test and do better, it actually has some kind of merit,” Teale said.

Juniors from most Spokane-area schools received a letter this year explaining how a retake chance was being offered.

Roughly, 10 percent of juniors announced plans to retake the test this year, said school officials.

In the Central Valley School District, 75 students signed up to retake the test with 30 of them who have already passed the reading, math and writing sections. In Spokane Public Schools, 391 students who had failed at least one section signed up to take the test. Another 41 students signed up who had already passed every section.

By 2008, the WASL scores may be used in some capacity in a student’s admission, but it will still be one of several criteria used, Teale said.

“For admission purposes, they’d do better retaking the SAT or ACT,” said Phillip Ballinger, University of Washington director of admissions. “We’re not encouraging students to retake the WASL. For the scholarship issue, all we’re concerned with is that they’ve passed the WASL.”