Washington's History Standards Get Mixed Review

As they tend to do every year or so, the Fordham Foundation has released a new review of the academic standards states have set, this time focused on world history.

The good! Washington ranks 20th in the nation, under the scoring system that they use. Our standards in grades K to 8 are called "laudable", "well written", and are said to "provide a solid foundation."

The bad! What they don't like are the high school standards, which are "vague and unspecific." Our overall grade is a D, which puts in the company of 2/3 of the states. Overall: "Washingtonians should feel cheated."

One thing that needs to be pointed out is that our Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) only go up to 10th grade. If you consider that there are 11 years total in grades K-10, and we're said to have good standards grades K-8, that means we're said to have good standards 9 years out of the 11 we have GLEs, and yet we're still at a D level.

And if they'd used a curve we'd have a B, so nyah. You can read their full review of Washington State (it's only a 1 page pdf) here.