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Statewide Computer Based Student Testing Fails – Again
April 20, 2015
Statewide computer-based testing was once again down Monday morning in Florida, causing school districts across the state to delay or postpone testing in grades 5-10.
A technical problem prevented schools from logging into the testing server, according to Escambia County School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas.
“Because of the time zone difference between here and South Florida, we knew beforehand that the problems existed at the state level,” Thomas said. Those statewide vendor problems were resolved by about 9:30 a.m.. “Many of our students never knew there was a problem. It was fixed before most of our middle schools were in session.”
Each individual school in the county decided how to proceed with testing today after the system was back online, the superintendent said.
““This morning, AIR’s President of Assessment notified me of a technical change that was made to the Florida Standards Assessment testing system over the weekend that was not approved by the Department. This change was unnecessary to the administration of the Florida Standards Assessment and resulted in a disruption that hindered students from being able to log in to the system and take their test today,” Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said. “The company’s failure to follow protocol is absolutely unacceptable and the Department will hold AIR accountable for the disruption they have caused to our state’s students, teachers and school staff.”
The new Florida Standards Assessment tests have been plagued by by technical problems and cyber-attacks that have prevented students for logging on, or sometimes finishing. In March, Escambia County suspending testing for days due to the statewide vendor problems. Only about 150,000 eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade students had been able to take the Florida Standards Assessment writing test — about a quarter of the students registered for that exam — by the second day of failures in March.
American Institutes for Research, a non-profit group, has a six-year, $220 million deal to design and deliver the tests.
Comments
6 Responses to “Statewide Computer Based Student Testing Fails – Again”
I wish we could just go back to pencil and paper, Many other students would agree with me and many wouldnt. im tired of coming to school and having to wait another day because the servers are down. Im just tired of it…
>>>>”The company’s failure to follow protocol is absolutely unacceptable and the Department will hold AIR accountable”
Are you going to make everybody in the company sit in a corner and wear a dunce cap?
Well said MoRMS, this is a broken system. kids have enough on them these days. They should be able to go and enjoy learning. My kids hate all the testing and I myself Don’t really care for it either. ( teachers hate it too but can’t say anything against it openly )
As a parent, I am beyond LIVID. Can someone tell me what the purpose of going online actually is? This whole year has done nothing but provide one fiasco headline after another. Now parents are being told that the results will be delayed for 8 months. How can teachers and students alike decide the best course of action for their schedules next year? Counties should get ready for a lot of flack and head-butting about course offerings next year.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/testing/new-florida-law-will-delay-school-test-results-for-months/2225645
This testing system is one of several reasons that our kids stay so stressed out and have such anxiety about school related issues. The teachers have to stress the importance of these tests over and over and they work so hard to prepare the kids for the test only to find that because of a computer problem they aren’t able to take the test. So it’s pushed off a day or two, causing more anxiety. I don’t believe this is a good system in any way. I understand the need to do things better but this obviously isn’t working. I would greatly prefer for the teachers to just teach and the kids to enjoy learning. Things have changed for the worse with our school system and unfortunately our children are going to suffer in the end terribly.
Not cool.