Anchor Lead:
Monday, June 16th at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, the Enumclaw High School class of 2003 will graduate. Among the students who will receive a diploma is Lacey Androsko. For the last two years, Lacey has served as a student representative on the State Board of Education. In the latest installment of our education series "The Learning Curve," KPLU's Austin Jenkins takes us back to school for a student perspective on education reform.

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Informative weblinks:

About Enumclaw High School (pdf document)

Washington State Board of Education

WASL Test Scores (OSPI)

Austin Jenkins (AJ):
Lunchtime at Enumclaw High School. It's near the end of the school year. Students gather at tables in the large, sun-lit room and talk about their summer plans. Others head outside to the annual student car show - to check out the refurbished classics and jacked up pick-up trucks. The mood is also relaxed in the student leadership classroom where senior Lacey Androsko thumbs through the yellow pages.

ANDROSKO: "Oh, I'm going to make my nail appointment for senior ball (laughs)."

AJ: Lacey is wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Her hair is pulled back in a pony tail. Prom is one day away. Lounging around the room are Lacey's fellow student leaders - mostly juniors and seniors. While she calls the nail shop, someone brings up the topic of senior wills - a tradition whereby seniors leave something to a lower classman. Lacey hangs up the phone and turns to her friend Mallory.

ANDROSKO: "Alright, what do you want me to will you?"
Mallory: "I don't know. Will me your GPA."
ANDROSKO: "Okay, I will Mallory Johnson my GPA of 3.993."

AJ: If only it were that easy. Lacey's spent the last two years thinking a lot about student success. This has been her job as one of two non-voting student representatives on the State Board of Education.

ANDROSKO: "When I first got on my first opinion was, I don't think I'm really going to have an impact, I'm just a student."

AJ: But soon Lacey discovered the adults on the board were depending on her. In an era of education reform - much of it initiated at the state level, some of it mandated by the federal government - they needed a student perspective.

ANDROSKO: "I started becoming very vocal and I started to think this is very meaningful to me. I mean education reform in Washington. That's a big thing."

AJ: Soon after, Lacey discovered the one area of education reform that would become her passion. The WASL or Washington Assessment of Student Learning. The controversial, standardized test taken by all fourth, seventh and tenth graders in the state - passage of which will become a high school graduation requirement in 2008.

ANDROSKO: "It's just testing basic skills. If kids can't pass it and they don't know basic skills why are we letting them out into the real world, they're not gonna be successful. So we better do something about it now before they get out in the real world and then they're on the streets."

AJ: Lacey says her support of the WASL is not because she's a good test-taker.

ANDROSKO: "I know I struggle with tests. It's not, I get test anxiety big time."

AJ: She also admits her pro-WASL stance puts her at odds with many students. Like Enumclaw sophomore Kat Hart who took the WASL this year. She can't help but think about the students who will have to pass the test to graduate.

HART: "The kids below us, the 7th graders, it's going to hit them really hard because now they're just going to start teaching around the WASL and nothing else because they're not going to pass if not. It's a hard test. I didn't like it."

AJ: Senior Tyson Gamblin serves on the student leadership team with Lacey. He's also not a fan of the WASL, but respects Lacey for her willingness to speak out in favor of something so unpopular.

GAMBLIN: "It's actually been kind of nice to have someone in a class discussion about the WASL that's pro-WASL as compared to every other student in the whole world that disapproves of it or doesn't like spending a week taking a test - I'm one of them."

AJ: At Enumclaw High last year fewer than fifty percent of tenth graders passed the reading section of the WASL and only a third passed the math. Concerned, Lacey turned her passion for the WASL into action this spring. She organized an assembly at her high school for sophomores and juniors. Despite some heckling, she awarded t-shirts to the handful of juniors who'd passed all four sections of the test the previous year. And promised similar rewards to the sophomores about to take the test. Kevin Smith is Lacey's leadership teacher.

SMITH: "As long as the kids don't see a tie to graduation, most kids don't care and that's the hardest part is to get them to care as much about WASL scores to the same thing as if we win the state basketball championship and that's kind of what Lacey's been trying to do."

AJ: But it's a tough sell. Even on the State Board of Education. Lacey's student counterpart on the board is Andrea Naccarato, a high school junior from Veradale near Spokane. She and Lacey are close friends, but don't see eye to eye on the WASL.

NACCARATO: "I believe that every child has an opportunity to learn, but I'm not sure all the opportunities to learn are equal. I think there are things in the home that we as a state can't control and those things are going to put a restriction on how they're going to do."

AJ: In some ways Lacey Androsko is an unlikely candidate to have become a student representative on the State Board of Education. She grew up in the small town of Black Diamond a few miles North of Enumclaw. She has cousins who are high-school drop-outs. Recently she did the math and figured out that of the thirty kids in her sixth grade class - only six are still in school.

AJ: In a basement meeting room at the Sun Mountain Lodge overlooking the Methow Valley, Lacey regales the eleven members of the State Board of Education and their staff with stories of learning to rock climb.

ANDROSKO: "Halfway up I'm like I gotta come down, I gotta come down and my instructor's like, Lacey, you're almost there, just go and I'm like I can't do it."

AJ: Rock climbing was the subject of her senior project. By 2008 every senior in the state will have to complete one in order to graduate. Lacey thinks it's a good requirement, but tells the board there needs to be class-time set aside for students to work on their project. Lacey also briefs the board on her WASL pep rally and a pizza party she threw for sophomores who were identified by teachers as having come prepared to the test each day and taken it seriously. This reward system concerns board member Warren Smith - especially when he hears there were a hundred or so students who didn't get to attend the pizza party.

W. SMITH: "And then if they are not prepared and they're not going to do well and they're more or less excluded from certain activities that are designed to promote and encourage I think that further puts them in the hole."

AJ: Lacey tells Warren it surprised her so many students didn't get to go to the pizza party because of their poor behavior during the WASL testing week.

ANDROSKO: "I didn't think it was going to be that many. And when I found out it was over a hundred, I started thinking what exactly happened. So my wheels were turning, so don't worry Warren."

AJ: It's a moment that highlights an ongoing concern the board members have about student representatives in general. Bobbie May is the Board's president.

MAY: "Obviously we're getting very talented students. I think that's come across. We're getting the cream of the crop, but the students that we get, one of the things we tell them is you have a very crucial responsibility to represent all students and you need to go back and make sure that you are bringing to us the input of students whose voices do not get heard."

AJ: Lacey knows her views are shaped by her experience. She often says she would have liked to go to a more diverse high school like Garfield in Seattle. Enumclaw high is nearly ninety-five percent white. This fall Lacey will move to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. She is the first in her family to go to college. She hopes to become a cancer doctor. As she graduates from high school and ends her term on the State Board, Lacey Androsko says she's not convinced public schools can save every student. But she's hopeful the reforms she's helped to shape and implement will ensure a lot more kids stay in school and graduate with the skills an knowledge they need to succeed.

Austin Jenkins, KPLU News.