Has there been some "irrational exuberance" in the news about Washington's seniors and their WASL pass rates?

I think so!

The WASL has been recognized as a measurement of 8th grade skills and we are excited that, for the state, the pass rate in English is 91.4 percent!

The Federal Way School District's rate is 95.8 percent.

While this sounds good at first, one has to recognize that this does not include the dropouts.

Federal Way's graduation rate, according to "Diploma Counts" is 56.8 percent.

Using this figure it would appear that 54.4 percent of the kids who entered the 9th grade four years ago are now "8th grade proficient" in reading and writing.

Just slightly more than on half of our kids.

What about in mathematics?

Here the story is even less "exuberant."

Only 46.7 percent of our 10th graders have met the standard for 8th graders.

Those who have exceeded the standard, presumably about 10th grade level, are 15.5 percent, and this is not even making any adjustment for the drop outs by the spring of the 10th grade.

If we were to look at some of the minorities' rates, we might lose any exuberance that is left. For Blacks, only 16.7 percent were 8th grade proficient, as 10th graders, and 7 students, 3.1 percent, exceeded expectations.

Almost half of the Black students are in the lowest category, "below standard."

The Hispanic scores are not much better. 26.4 percent are 8th grade proficient by the end of 10th grade and only 11 students (6.2 percent) exceed expectations.

This doesn't sound like a great future for most of the students attending our schools.

If we were to assume that "exceeding expectations" might mean basic competency for higher education, then the odds of completing college for all students in Federal Way would be about 1 in 7 and for our minorities something close to 1 in 15-30!.

Is it any wonder that Washington has such little success with kids graduating from college?

From time to time I have seen disagreement with my contentions about the quality of our schools from those whose children have graduated from our schools and done well in college.

It is true that many students have had success in colleges, even some in competitive colleges.

Those who have taken the International Baccalaureate program, or done very well in a series of Advance Placement tests, have probably done quite well.

These students are almost certainly in the "exceeding expectations" category in at least Reading (51.6 percent) and Writing (38.1 percent). In Math (15.5 percent), and worse yet Science (2.1 percent), we have some problems with most of our children. If only 56.3 percent are graduating from high school, as this is without any rigorous requirements, we are placing a very significant number of young adults in jeopardy of a difficult life.

Where is the concern?

We are spending close to $200 million every year in Federal Way, and the outcomes are less reliable than the worst cars ever sold!

Any business that sold products with this kind of reliability would be out of business in a few weeks.

Why aren't parents more concerned about their children's future?

Could it be that the accomplishments of a few, in a scholarly way, and the accomplishments of the athletes have camouflaged the real successes of our schools? I think so.

A look at our newspaper's reports on "progress" almost always is a report on a very limited population of students.

WASL results probably are a much better indicator of what the skill levels are for the majority of students.

Why then are the scores less than most would like them to be?

The two largest factors in this, in my opinion, are the indifference of so many parents and the public relations efforts of the schools to portray the schools as "successful."

What do successful schools look like? Newsweek has a list of them on their web site. There are none in Federal Way.

At this stage it would seem that a major "rebuild" would be required to make this list.

In Massachusetts the Governor is proposing to waive the MCAS, a more rigorous form of the WASL, for those students who have mastered the International Baccalaureate Program (IB) by the age of 16!

Most of our students, who even enroll in the International Baccalaureate Program are about 16 when they start!

If the Governor's program prevails those 16 year olds who have mastered the IB program will be shown the door of the high school and be sent on to college, as they should be!

What is happening in our secondary schools instead of what the Governor of Massachusetts is suggesting?

In a recent edition of "Education Week" there is a front page article titled "Majority of Youths Found to Lack a Direction in Life."

In my discussions with children in the past 10 years I have certainly found this to be true.

No special interests, no passions, and no goals are very common observations of some of the most talented students.

In many of the struggling students often the opposite is true. They have wonderful ambitions but little understanding of what they would have to do to achieve them.

This tends to suggest to me that most kids do not believe that high school is training for adulthood.

I think that most taxpayers might want to view this somewhat differently.

Before we spend more dollars on this problem perhaps we need to better define our purpose.

Charlie Hoff is a former member of the Boarwd of Education for Federal Way Public Schools. His weekly column will appear in upcoming issues of the Federal Way News and online at www.federalwaynews.net.