The letter to the editor that caught my eye on today’s Roundtable page was this one from a Mead High School student named Adrianna Hall, who struggles with the math portion of the WASL.

What’s your best advice for her? (And if you’d like to share your thoughts on the WASL or the high school math curriculum, that’s fine, too.)

WASL punishes hard work

I am a student at Mead High. I have some learning challenges and I work very hard to get good grades. I have a 3.2 GPA and got a C in geometry. I have passed all the WASL tests except the math. (I have A’s and B’s in everything else.) I have struggled my whole life with taking tests and getting through math. I spend at least four hours every night doing my work, because of my challenges, but I do it! I have wanted to quit so many times because of the WASL.

When the governor signed legislation to eliminate the math section of the WASL I finally thought that all my hard work would be worth it because I could graduate. Now we have to take “segmented math”/regular math and pass with an “A or B” in order to get the “alternative” Certificate of Achievement (what’s so bad about a “C”?).

Not everyone is a genius. Most of us are just average. Some of us have challenges since birth to contend with. So someone please tell me why we should bother staying in school when all you do is put us down and make us feel ignorant and inferior?

Adrianna E. Hall
Spokane