Public school officials in Jefferson and Clallam counties are closely reviewing standardized test scores released Monday afternoon.
The Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, test, is given to students in the fourth, seventh and 10th grades.
Passing the test will become will become a requirement to graduate from high school in 2008.
Statewide, fewer than one in three students is meeting state standards in all four subject areas, although the rate of passage climbed from 2001 to 2002, the results released Monday show.
State School Superintendent Terry Bergeson said last spring’s statewide testing of about 240,000 students showed significant improvement in writing in all three grades.
But fourth-grade reading scores slipped a bit, and some 10th-graders apparently blew off major portions of the exam, commonly known as the WASL test.
The test is a centerpiece of the education reform law adopted in 1993 and reflects the state’s decision to raise the bar on what schools expect of themselves and children.
The test costs about $24 per student to administer.
Many North Olympic Peninsula school officials, seeing their respective districts’ scores for the first time, would not comment publicly Monday until they carefully reviewed the results.
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