Saturday, October 25, 2008

Julie Wright's View on votes that will improve Education

Dear Friends,

As you cast your ballots, I encourage you to make your vote count to improve education in WA state! Please vote Randy Dorn for Superintendent of Public Instruction and re-elect Rep. Glenn Anderson if you live in the 5th District. I’m working on both of their campaigns because I know each of them has the expertise, understanding, and commitment needed to make critical improvements in education.

Over the past few years, I’ve been very involved in the efforts to improve math education and the State Assessment. Nearly ½ of WA students fail in math, with minority groups failing at much higher rates (OSPI Report Card). This is due in large measure to the “F” rated math standards that the incumbent, Terry Bergeson, created, and the poor quality curricula she promoted in schools. Even after the Legislature ordered Bergeson to bring WA math standards and curricula up to world class standards, she is still recommending curriculum that lacks critical content and does not develop essential math skills. During Bergeson’s tenure, WA spent over 1 billion dollars and wasted excessive amounts of instruction time on the WASL--which provides NO guidance for improving student performance and NO comparison of performance outside of WA State.

Randy Dorn
Randy Dorn will replace the WASL with a fair and useful exam that is diagnostic, has fast results so student needs can be identified and fixed before they get worse, and provides a national comparison of student achievement. Randy Dorn is also committed to working with experts, parents, and stakeholders to ensure WA has standards and curricula that are competitive with the rest of the nation and world. It’s time for a new leader who has more experience in the schools and is more in-touch with the needs of students. Please vote Randy Dorn for Superintendent of Public Instruction! www.RandyDorn2008.com

Rep. Glenn Anderson
Rep. Glenn Anderson is a well respected education leader in the Legislature. He is the Assistant Ranking Member on the House K -12 Education Committee, the Ranking Member of the Higher Education Committee, and serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. He also serves on the Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance and the Legislature’s WASL Work Group. Glenn’s positions and expertise in education issues provide critical guidance to other policy makers in Olympia as they develop solutions to improve education. Glenn led a statewide bi-partisan coalition that resulted in a comprehensive rewrite of WA math and science standards to bring them up to world-class standards. The 5th District is fortunate to have such a committed advocate for our children in the State Legislature. Please re-elect Rep. Glenn Anderson! www.glennanderson.org

Please pass this message to others who would like to improve education. Thank you.

Julie Wright

"The fate of empires depends on the education of youth." --Aristotle

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you could ask Mr. Anderson how a substantial enrollment decline in Washington will affect public schools in the future.

Anonymous said...

The WASL could have been replaced years ago for being developmentally inappropriate, but wasn't. Dr. Orlich has made some very good predictions about WASL success rates (March, 2005) using some very straightforward analysis.

"For Grade 5, Science
WASL, I (Orlich) predicted a most pessimistic failure rate of 63% - 67%. In Spring of 2004, 71.8%
failed. For grade 8, my prediction was 60% - 64% fail. In Spring 2004, 60.6% failed. For grade
10, my prediction was that 60% to 64% would fail. In Spring 2004, 67.8% failed. My
predictions, based on the (so-called) state science standards, were all within 4% of being perfect.
This can only happen when the tests are developmentally inappropriate. It certainly appears that
the OSPI and WASL writers are confusing “rigor” with “developmentally advanced.” Or they
are confusing both."

http://thefactsaboutedreform.homestead.com/THE_WASL_A_Critical_Report.pdf