Legislature fails to remove racially biased barrier to graduation

As other high school graduation requirements become more rigorous, the state of Washington needs to delink state assessments from graduation. This year’s graduating class – the class of 2019 – will be the first graduating class required to earn 24 credits to graduate, as opposed to previous classes that were required to earn only 20. As we create new requirements to graduate, we should be looking for any unnecessary or unfair requirements that can be removed.

Linking state tests to graduation is particularly troublesome because it disproportionately affects students of color. Last year, 76 percent of 10th graders who were white met the state standard on the Language Arts General Assessment. That is compared to 53 percent of Latino students, 49 percent of Black students, and 43 percent of American Indian students. The gaps were even wider for the Math General Assessment. If these students pass their high school classes and earn their 24 credits, why do we care if they pass these tests? It is just an additional barrier.

This legislative session, five bills were filed that would have delinked testing from graduation (HB 1089, HB 1720, HB 1599, SB 5014, and SB 5548). With so many bills introduced and so many educators in favor of delinking, why is the legislature dragging their feet on this?