WAC 180-51-001   Education reform vision.  (1) The state is shifting from a time and credit-based system of education to a standards and performance-based education system. Certain ways of thinking about time must shift in order to support the ongoing implementation of school reform. The board's long-term vision of a performance-based education system includes:

     (a) No references to grade levels or linking a student's educational progress to a particular age. Instead, learning is viewed in terms of developmental progress, academically and vocationally, so that while the curriculum may be sequential the student moves through it at her or his developmental pace, regardless of age;

     (b) An understanding that in the absence of other important information, a student's grade point average and performance on the Washington assessment of student learning do not provide a complete picture of the student's abilities and accomplishments;

     (c) An understanding that our concept of school needs to expand and take into account that education and learning are about connected learning experiences, which can and do occur inside and outside the physical boundaries of a school building; and

     (d) An understanding that students do not all learn in the same way (there are multiple learning styles), that teachers do not all instruct in the same way (there are multiple teaching styles and strategies), and these facts suggest that it should be possible to assess students' performance and achievement in multiple ways while maintaining common, high expectations and standards for learning.

     (2) Long-term, as the performance-based education system continues to evolve, the state board of education believes that there should be an on-going review of assessment administration issues. The state board envisions a time when state assessments are administered during one or more assessment windows annually. During these times, students are allowed to take the appropriate norm-referenced or criterion-referenced state assessment based upon the collective determination by the student, the student's parent(s), teacher(s), and counselor that the student is developmentally ready to take the assessment, rather than because the student is a particular age or is in a particular grade.



[Statutory Authority: RCW 28A.230.090. 00-19-108, § 180-51-001, filed 9/20/00, effective 10/21/00.]