Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson is dancing on the tabletops to celebrate the newly released WASL scores:

The official numbers, released yesterday, show strong gains, especially in seventh grade, which were larger than ever. The percentage of seventh-graders who passed reading was 60.4, up 12.5 percentage points from last year, and 46.3 percent in math, up 9.5 points.

"When you see that kind of academic gain, you have to celebrate it," state schools Superintendent Terry Bergeson said as she announced the scores. She told the audience to thank teachers "with a hug, and thank them with a pay raise."

But much of that increase in WASL scores can be attributed to the decision this year to lower some of the test's passing scores for the seventh- and fourth-grade tests. Without those changes, the seventh-grade gain instead would have been much smaller: 3.6 percentage points in reading, and 1.8 in math.

Bergeson said she plans to request a $1 billion increase in education spending from the Legislature this biennium — less if Initiative 884 passes, which also seeks to raise more money for education with a sales-tax increase.