Updated at 2:26 p.m. after a State Department of Education press conference.
For the second consecutive year, standardized testing for Oklahoma students has been disrupted, prompting the state superintendent to suspend all online testing for the day.
Superintendent Janet Barresi directed testing vendor CTB/McGraw Hill to suspend its testing Monday after disruptions for students taking high school end-of-instruction exams and tests in grades six through eight.
“It is hard to describe how frustrated and angry I am,” Barresi said during a press conference Monday. “We will certainly hold this company accountable.”
McGraw-Hill contract allows for penalties. $15k per outage day plus 3% of contact.
— Nate Robson (@Nate_Robson1) April 21, 2014
Students who attempted to take the tests encountered numerous error messages and officials have halted those tests. Education officials say student responses should be saved up to the point of disruption, so students can complete the tests once the system is back online.
A similar glitch stalled testing last year in Oklahoma and elsewhere, but Barresi said Monday’s outage was unrelated.
“One of the demands that I made [after last year’s outage] is that if there was a disruption, we need to be able to save those students’ place, so they can come back and complete the test,” Barresi said. “The company has assured us that has taken place.”
http://youtu.be/3TIz9AVa_f4
CTB/McGraw Hill issued a statement Monday evening saying ``a network service interruption'' affected some schools that use the tests. The company said the problem was identified and corrected within three hours.
Oklahoma Watch’s Nate Robson reports the state only stuck with CTB/McGraw-Hill after last year's outage because it was too late in year to get a new vendor. Ending the contract would mean finding a new vendor and creating a new test, which could take up to a year-and-a-half.
Barresi: state is looking at going to paper and pencil tests to finish testing. 8,100 students unable to test today online. #OklaEd
— Oklahoma Watch (@OklahomaWatch) April 21, 2014
Oklahoma pays McGraw-Hill $7.2 million for middle school, $6.2 for high school testing. #OklaEd
— Nate Robson (@Nate_Robson1) April 21, 2014
The executive directors of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, the United Suburban Schools Association and the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration issued a statement saying the efforts of students who prepared for the tests were wasted.
“We expect our students to be prepared for these assessments because the stakes are so high,” the leaders said in a joint press release. “These days it seems that accountability is a one way street, only applying to local school districts.”
A spokesperson for Edmond Public Schools says students at Edmond Santa Fe High School, Edmond Memorial High School and Sequoyah Middle Schools were disrupted.
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