Are the WASLs all they're cracked up to be?

[mustang34]

I can just see the future of WASL students: "Oh! I can't do this it wasn't on the WASL"

The high school in my area does poorly on the WASL but it's ranked in the top 5% of USA schools (not sure how the schools are measured)
It really annoys me when people say "oh, those Pasco schools are bad, they fail the WASL." Just have students who do not try.

[Pittgal]

Here this is in todays paper:

Good WASL, if you don't count math - News - MSNBC.com (broken link)

[AzDreamer]

I looked at the WASL results and they match pretty closely to what you would expect.

The better schools where parents expect their kids to work hard get higher scores than schools where the kids don't have the same pressure.

[ness]

Originally Posted by BrumMom

Hi:

I just read a post from back in 2006 about how WASL scores are not a good representation of how well schools are actually teaching. Is this true? My family has just relocated from the East coast and I am looking for an excellent school district in the Tacoma area (I was disappointed). We were thinking of moving to Olympia because the schools look very good, but Olympia came under fire in this particular post which stated that the school district merely "conditioned kids" to pass the WASLs, rather than actually teaching. Can I get some input from teachers and parents on this? I have been looking at schools all over this area, Olympia, Tacoma, even up in the Maple Valley area. Should I pay any attention to the WASL scores? Honest feedback please.

We have a friend (she' a teacher by profession) and they chose Gig Harbor as a place to settle b/c of the good schools. I have also heard good things about the schools in University Place and Brown's Point (both near Tacoma). Gig Harbor is across the bridge but still close to Tacoma. I think that there are many different ways to evaluate a school. greatschools.com does a fairly comprehensive review based on class size, test scores, etc. but I would also try and visit schools you are considering and get a "feel" for them.