The Dispatch's Bruce Smith filed this in-depth report on the WASL:

"Why WASL?
Who pushes the WASL and why
by Bruce Smith

Rep. Tom Campbell (R) declares we've spent over a billion dollars on the WASL, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, and exclaims, "What have we've gotten? Not much!" He says we should repeal WASL, disband the agency that concocted it - the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction - and better empower local superintendents to teach our children.

Rep. Jim McCune (R) pledges a fight on WASL and a return to the solid fundamentals of pre-WASL curriculum.

Senator Marilyn Rasmussen (D) calls WASL "horrible" and a "tragedy," and charges OSPI with reckless spending, all in pursuit of fostering a test which "punishes children."

With all three local state legislators adamantly against WASL, who is for it? Rasmussen, McCune and Campbell point their fingers at many facets of society, but they all agree on one major player: a quiet, behind-the-scenes group of business leaders called the Washington Roundtable.

Marc Frazer, Vice-President of the Washington Roundtable, characterizes his organization as a non-partisan group of CEOs representing many of the largest corporations in the state. Boeing, Microsoft and Washington Mutual are some of the Roundtable's members. In addition, executives from the Tacoma News Tribune and the Spokane Spokesman Review sit at the Roundtable, while the organization's current chair, W. Stacey Cowles, has family ties to the Seattle Times and the New York Times," quoting the Eatonville Dispatch.

Be sure to read the full article.