Threat Down: Credits vs. WASL

It's WASL testing week for Washington state's high school sophomores and any juniors or seniors (especially seniors) that want to retake or need to take the reading and writing tests to graduate. With this year's seniors bearing the title of the first to graduate under the state's new graduation requirements, there's a lot of focus on passing the WASL. But what about passing P.E.? Or Spanish?

That's the focus of today's article in The Seattle Times, which looks at several districts north of Seattle where credit deficiencies threaten graduation plans -- not the WASL. In Marysville, the district reports there are about 10 times as many students that are not on track to graduate due to credits rather than WASL scores.

"It's not these other factors that are impeding students from graduating — it's the low credits," [Ray Houser, Marysville executive director of teaching and learning] said.

"We realize that it's not necessarily the assessment or the state requirements, but the inability to successfully navigate the classes," he said.

High school principals: Is this something you're seeing in your own schools?