The Tennessee Department of Education has terminated its contract with the developer of the state’s new standardized test and suspended testing for students in grades 3-8 this school year due to the company’s inability to deliver testing materials, Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced Wednesday.
However, TNReady testing will continue as planned for the state’s high school students, since those materials already have been delivered.
The announcement delivered the fatal blow to a test that has been plagued with problems beginning with a failed online rollout on Feb. 8 and numerous subsequent delivery delays of printed testing materials. The last straw came last week when Measurement Inc. failed to meet its most recent deadline — to deliver materials by April 22 — in time for testing to begin this week.
As of Wednesday morning, all districts still were waiting on some grade 3-8 materials to arrive, with a total of 2 million documents yet to be shipped, according to a statement from the department.
“Measurement Inc.’s performance is deeply disappointing,” McQueen said. “We’ve exhausted every option in problem solving with this vendor to assist them in getting these tests delivered. Districts have exceeded their responsibility and obligation to wait for grade 3-8 materials, and we will not ask districts to continue waiting on a vendor that has repeatedly failed us.”
See the latest story from Chalkbeat.org at http://bit.ly/21hY4RI.
Last week, the Tennessee Department of Education on Friday apologized and promised no more delays in light of the third holdup of the state’s new standardized exam since it was rolled out Feb. 8.
“We will not ask districts to reschedule again beyond what has been communicated to date, and we will not extend the testing window beyond May 10,” department spokeswoman Ashley Ball said at that time. “… Our priority is for students to end the school year on a strong note, and we do not want state testing to interfere with our students’ end-of-year experience.”
Ball said the company that created the test, North Carolina-based Measurement Inc., assured state officials that school districts would receive missing materials for grades 3-8 by April 27, and that state education department has told districts that they can be as flexible as they need with scheduling. The testing window runs from April 25-May 10.
While all districts have received testing materials for high school courses, grade 3-8 TNReady materials for math and English, as well as TCAP materials for science, are arriving in districts daily.
The vendor had originally assured the Department that all materials would be received by April 25.
Ball said state officials would keep the public updated about ongoing conversations with Measurement Inc.
This article was compiled from multiple reports published at tn.chalkbeat.org and published with permission; see link1 and link2. The author was Grace Tatter. Also see a related article from the Tennessee Department of Education summarizing the state’s direction on this testing.
