The good news is that test scores in Washington are improving. The

bad news is that critics claim the tests are too hard and want them tossed out.

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests are

in their fourth year of being phased into our state’s schools. Yes, they are

tough. They have to be if students are going to learn what they need to know

and if high school diplomas are going to mean something other than a

certificate for attending school.

Last spring, the fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade

students who were tested in math, reading, writing and

listening showed improvement in most areas.

For example, fourth-grade math and reading

scores continued to climb, while writing scores bounced back from a

three-year decline. Meanwhile, listening dipped after holding steady for

two straight years.

Seventh-graders improved in math, reading and writing, but

like fourth-graders, they slipped in listening skills. For 10th-graders,

math, reading and listening skill scores improved, but scores in writing dropped.

While many may point to the continued failure of our state’s

public school system, our state’s School Superintendent, Terry Bergeson,

rightly says there is “steady improvement.”

That steady improvement is the key. I vividly remember when

Frank Shrontz, the former Boeing CEO who chaired the Accountability Task

Force for the state Commission on Student Learning, reminded us that one of

the most important benefits of the WASL was its use as a tool to

measure progress.

The three teachers in our family agree. Our eldest daughter is an

advanced placement high school English teacher; our son-in-law is a

high-school math teacher and soccer coach; and our younger daughter is a

middle-school math teacher.

All three say the WASL tests are benchmarks to measure progress,

but they are only a part of a system to determine whether students know

their subject matter _ and more importantly, can apply it in real life.

Our oldest, who is starting her sixth year of teaching, believes it

is important for students to pass the 10th-grade WASL, and it is equally

important that they graduate with the ability to read, comprehend and write in

order to communicate effectively.

Our son-in-law, who is also beginning his sixth year, says the

same thing, only he wants to make sure that when his students leave high

school, they can apply math skills to balancing their checkbooks and doing

simple equations.

“It doesn’t make sense to let a student slide out of the system and

become a baker if he can’t calculate the proper mixture of ingredients in

the various cakes he has to bake,” he said.

Our younger daughter, whose background is in biology and the

sciences, says WASL helps her students relate to the real world. “I hope

that when my students are old enough to get a driver’s license, they’ll

understand the correlation between cars and pollution.”

While critics have some valid points, Superintendent Bergeson

is right to see the recent WASL results as a “glass half full.” Public

officials, parents and students should remember that the tests measure

progress over time. While the results in general are improving, there is much work

to be done.

Stay the course.

Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington

Business. AWB is the state’s oldest and largest statewide business

organization whose 3,700 members employ more than 600,000 workers in

our state. AWB is Washington’s state chamber of commerce, and

Brunell serves on the Accounta