So a couple of people have asked me recently, how is P graduating, but NOT taking the WASL? Well, let me tell you about that.

We live in Washington State. Washington has this wonderfully flawed test called the WASL. It was given to 4th, 7th, and 10 graders, in an effort to show that kids are learning what they should be learning. What it actually shows, consistently year after year, is that teachers don’t teach the TEST very well, and while many kids are VERY bright and blow everyone away on standardized tests, the WASL is not a standardized test. There is no other state using the same test, therefore it cannot be norm-referenced because there is no “norm”.

My daughter is 17, almost 18, and a Senior. She was homeschooled K-8th. She has been attending public school since the beginning of high school. She passed half of the WASL (Reading, Writing) with flying colors (above average scores). The other half (math & Science) she did not pass. She repeated CMIC1a-1b twice and still only pulled D’s both times. Fuzzy math is NOT her friend, not her learning style, and not appropriate for the vast number of students here who consistently have failed that Math WASL year after year.

State law says if they fail the Math portion of the WASL, they must continue to retake it each time it is offered, until they can pass it. They also are required to take math each year, for a total of 4. The trouble is, her high school does not HAVE A MATH CLASS SHE CAN TAKE! Not one. No prealgebra or traditional algebra class. Nothing. Besides, how many NON-college-bound kids do you know that TAKE four years of math? None, of course. There is no need. She tried accounting Junior year, but for my numbers-phobic girl this was a terrible choice, and since her foundational math skills were so severely eroded, she did not do well in that either. I pulled her out of that class completely, and she took pre-algebra at home instead. No, she didn’t get credit for it. The goal was to give her back some of her foundational math skills. And it was HARD.

So for graduation, here is what we are doing:

~ She is not retaking the WASL, nor is she taking four years of math.

~ She is taking 3 classes at the high school this year: Holocaust, Foods (unless she is able to audition into A Capella choir, which she is hoping to), and Student Leadership. She’s a LINK leader and she loves it. She is also leading First Priority, which is the school’s Bible club.

~ She will take 1.5 Language Arts credits online.

~ We are transferring her transcript to

North Atlantic Regional High School

. They will import the whole transcript, apply her credits to their school requirements, and graduate her.

As I have told the counselor at her high school several times over the past few years: YES, THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GRADUATE!
No one is locked into passing the WASL to graduate. I guess my years (and years) of homeschooling really have taught me how to think outside the box. And this is the last child we have who will attend public school. Ever. It’s a mistake I wish I’d never made, on so many different levels.