GenHillOne
Another downfall of the “one size fits all” testing comes to light in the reporting as well. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall, there is no breakdown of student populations when WASL scores are listed in a school’s annual report. For instance, our WS grade school was wonderfully diverse and included many ESL/ELL students. I even think it was even a magnet of sorts for 2-3 particular languages, which I thought they did throughout the district and was a good use of resources because the teachers could be specialized. I always cringed a bit at the kindergarten fairs because our school’s numbers, ESL/ELL scores included, were always compared (by prospective parents) to Lafayette’s numbers with Spectrum, another magnet of sorts, students’ scores included. Apples to oranges. There was no way to look at how the students who were neither ESL/ELL nor Spectrum were fairing at the various choices. On the flip side, it would be nice to be able to compare how the ESL/ELL and Spectrum students were testing at different schools to see how those programs are doing. Perhaps this has changed and I’ve missed it, but I do encourage friends and neighbors going through the process to take those scores with a grain of salt and to look deeper, because it is easy to place a lot of weight there when looking for a school.