The Columbian gets it

There’s been a fair amount of grumbling over the past few weeks about whether or not this year’s WASL graduation requirement will hold some students back from walking at graduation. In most cases, graduations throughout the state have occurred without much “no WASL, no walk” fanfare, but I was impressed by a simple editorial in today’s Columbian that summed up the issue nicely.

“Deciding who gets to ‘walk’ at a graduation ceremony is difficult, and there’s no way to make everyone happy,” wrote the Columbian.

“The hard-line view is easy to understand. A graduation ceremony is for graduates, not nongraduates. And as Washougal school superintendent Teresa Baldwin noted in a recent Columbian story: ‘one of the things superintendents do at graduation is certify that all students have met the qualifications.’ To do otherwise is to betray the dignity of the event and the credibility of the superintendent.”

Well said. Check it out.