Highline High administrators apparently forgot to check the dusty subterranean school vaults for my PERMANENT RECORD so they let me judge senior culminating projects in May at my old alma mater.

Back in 1965, all I had to do is squeak through the required number of classes and they handed me a high school diploma.

There were no scary standardized state tests. That was fortunate for me. If I had been required to meet state math standards before graduating, I could have ended up as the oldest senior at the prom after a few years.

But nowadays, besides accumulating enough credits and passing a battery of tests, seniors must also complete a culminating project.

Working with an adviser, they must come up with a project that hopefully aligns with their career goals, find a mentor, complete the project and write a "reflection" paper.

Then, they must prepare a 10-15 minute oral presentation with visual aids in front of a panel of community civilians and teachers. Reminds me of those studies that found participants' second worst fear is dying-their worst fear is speaking in public.

I got pretty nervous myself when I learned that if I didn't pass them, they wouldn't get a diploma. So there was plenty of pressure on both sides of the table.

Sitting there, I felt like Simon Cowell from American Idol.

One poor girl must have mistaken me for Simon by the way she almost shivered to death in the 70-degree room. Social studies teacher Jeff Binns, who I was paired with, mercifully had her start over. She did fine after that.

Now, I'm one of those yahoos who grumble about grade inflation and proclaim the educational bar has sunk so low that I could have easily qualified for all honors classes now.

So, I was embarrassed to discover I am a ridiculously easy grader.

The students genuinely impressed me. They had cleaned up well, were articulate and had obviously put a lot of effort into their projects.

I don't know if my eight students were representative of Highline's Class of 2010. If they were, I can report that half of Highline's seniors are going to be teachers and the other half are going to be pediatric nurses.

Actually, there were wide ranges of projects among Highline district seniors. For example, Taylor Barrett and Alex Simkus from Aviation High sent a camera into the atmosphere using a helium-filled balloon, tracked it with a GPS and recovered the digital photos.

I bet that one really pleased board member Susan Goding who is pressing for fewer culminating projects involving fundraising and volunteering with nonprofits and more business and scientific pursuits.

Besides the students, I was also impressed with Mr. Binns. He had a great connection with the kids and made teaching social studies to classes of diverse students sound really exciting.

In fact, whenever I meet teachers I am impressed by how dedicated they are. These days it's not a job, it's a calling.

So it's surprising to me that the first thing suggested when school reform is advocated is to fire the old teachers and make the new teachers almost wholly accountable for improved student achievement.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in holding teachers accountable for performance standards. Having a bad teacher can cost a student a whole year scholastically. Considering the world we are preparing these students to enter, that's not acceptable.

Matriculating through the Highline schools during the baby boom era when they were throwing up new buildings as fast as they could and scrambling for instructors, I certainly had some real doozies as teachers. Funny, some of my worst teachers were the one most admired by administrators.

Having worked in the private sector all my working life, I got used to performance standards expressed in cold hard numbers.

But in evaluating teachers we need to emphasize student progress over raw test scores. We need multiple methods of evaluating competency. And we have to provide help for those teachers falling short.

And, of course, community members, lawmakers, school administrators, parents and the students should share accountability.

To those who sincerely believe all a good teacher really needs is a straight stick to draw lessons in the sand, pointing to the current challenges is a cop-out.

But reality is that Highline teachers are faced daily with kids being raised by kids or by students who are essentially raising themselves. A teacher's pupil whose residence is a Pac. Highway motel may not be in class tomorrow, He may be replaced by a student born and raised in a refugee camp enrolled in school for the first time in his life.

Recently, I heard about a boy from one of my old schools who was having problems. I can relate to that. When I first started there I felt isolated. After school I felt better when my mom would take my brother, sister and me up to the tennis club to go swimming.

This kid's problem was that a gang member was harassing his sister after school. His family, members of a rival gang, instructed him to kill the guy.

When we blame teachers, we often are hearkening back to our "Leave it to Beaver" childhoods and forgetting that many Highline students are living lives straight out of "The Wire."