Smarter Balanced + WCAS, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Met or Exceeded Standard.English Language Arts
40.1%
State avg 58.4%
District avg 40.1%
County avg 55.4%
+0.3pp since 2021-22
Mathematics
18.3%
State avg 51.2%
District avg 21.7%
County avg 44.0%
-1.6pp since 2021-22
Science
39.5%
State avg 52.2%
District avg 38.8%
County avg 48.3%
+3.5pp since 2021-22
What this means: On the Smarter Balanced + WCAS, Washington's statewide test, about 40 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 18 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 39 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all Washington schools, those numbers are about 58, 51, and 52. Reading and writing scores have held steady since 2021, while math scores are down about 2 points and science scores are up about 4 points.
What is Smarter Balanced + WCAS?
Washington public-school students in grades 3 through 8 plus grade 10 take the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) assessments in English Language Arts and Math each spring. The Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS) is given at grades 5, 8, and 11.
What does "% Met or Exceeded Standard" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school whose scores were rated Level 3 or Level 4 on the test. Smarter Balanced reports four performance levels; Level 3 ("Met Standard") and Level 4 ("Exceeded Standard") signal the student is performing at grade level or above. A higher number is better.
What does 40.1% mean for English Language Arts at Washington Connections Academy Goldendale?
It means about 40.1 percent of students tested at Washington Connections Academy Goldendale performed at grade level or above on the Smarter Balanced + WCAS English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Washington that year was 58.4%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Washington, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), Report Card Assessment Data on data.wa.gov. Smarter Balanced (SBAC) ELA + Math (grades 3-8 + 10/11), Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS) at grades 5, 8, 11. Headline metric is the cumulative Level 3 + Level 4 rate (Smarter Balanced "Met or Exceeded Standard").
How often is it updated?
Smarter Balanced + WCAS is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.
