By: ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News
SEATTLE - A question on a controversial statewide exam that Washington State high school students must pass to graduate is being removed because a student found it offensive.
The complaint is now prompting a statewide examination of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, to determine whether the question created a bias against some students.
The issue surrounds a question on the reading portion of the WASL and a passage that a 10th grade Mexican-American student found offensive to Hispanics. The passage comes from the award winning book "Breaking Through". It's the story of a Mexican immigrant's life in a migrant family during the 1950's.
In an e-mail to Governor Christine Gregoire, the unnamed student deemed the question "extremely offensive" and going "too far in Hispanic stereotypes." "It presented Hispanics as low-income, as strawberry pickers as janitors," said Juanita Doyon of the Parent Empowerment Network. "It presented as issue where one of the people in the story was deported."
State education officials say the question passed a review for bias and sensitivity, but the fact that the story was written in another era should have been disclosed to students taking the test. "If someone were to read that in a 2007 context, we understand how you could get a different view of things and perhaps take some offense at it," said Thomas Shapley, an official for the state Superintendent's office.
The organization pushing for removal of the question says this is not about political correctness, but rather making sure students do as well as possible on the WASL. The 10th grader who lodged the complaint is reportedly an honor student, but still had a hard time concentrating after reading the offending question.
"If this affects this student in this situation, how would it affect a student in the Skagit Valley in the strawberry area or how would it affect a student in the Yakima area," said Doyon.
A spokesman for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction says officials will take a look at answers to that particular question and see if Hispanic students scored more poorly on it than non-Hispanics. If so, that question will likely be omitted from the test for all students. School officials say that same question was on last year's WASL, but nobody complained.

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