Texas STAAR tests were canceled Tuesday by many after technical issues

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Texas education officials advised districts to suspend the first day of STAAR testing after thousands of students showed up in person and were prevented from taking the standardized online test due to widespread technical problems statewide.

“If your students have been able to access the test, they should continue to take the test. If your students have not been able to access the test, they should be excluded from the test until the problem is resolved,” he said. the Texas Education Agency message.

Texas officials demanded that students take Texas state academic readiness assessments this year at controlled test sites, even though millions of students continue to pursue distance learning due to the pandemic of coronavirus.

The interruptions affected the districts administering the online tests and ranged from slow response times until students could log in. Writing tests for fourth and seventh graders were discontinued, as well as English I tests for high school students, according to ASD. Online testing will resume on Wednesday.

TEA plans to transit the test completely online in the 2022-23 academic year. For districts that also planned to administer paper tests with Scantrons, students taking these versions have been able to continue with the tests.

“We understand the frustration this has caused students, parents, teachers and administrators,” the TEA statement said. “What has happened today is completely unacceptable.”

According to the TEA message, the Educational Testing Service, one of the companies the state hires to develop and administer the test, is investigating the problem. STAAR tests usually have a time limit of four or five hours, depending on the topic, and tests will be scheduled until May 14th. According to the TEA press release, ETS will stop administering statewide testing services starting this spring. Cambium Assessment, another commercial standardized testing company, will assume these functions from the 2021-22 school year.

“Everyone involved in public education in Texas should expect better than they have experienced today,” TEA announced. “We are working to ensure that our students do not experience future testing problems.”

Dr. Mark Henry, superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, said online tests had dropped statewide as of 9 p.m.

Austin ISD students waited nearly two hours in person to take the test. Dick Frazier, a music teacher at Austin ISD, also said there was a shortage of devices in his district for all students who showed up to take the test online.

“In some cases, these kids had never been to our school before, because they were in the pandemic all last year and have been in the pandemic this year,” Frazier said.

While the test is mandatory this year, there are no penalties for elementary and middle school students who fail or fail the STAAR test this year. Texas officials have said the test would not affect students’ ability to move up to the next grade.

But high school students must pass five subject-specific courses at the time of graduation, a requirement that will not be waived this year. Henry said expecting students to take a standardized in-person betting test this spring was “nonsense” and attributed the push to administer STAAR this year to the state’s $ 64 million contract with the company. of tests.

“There’s a lot of pressure on people to make sure these contracts are delivered,” Henry said. “Therefore, this spring, the tests do not consist of improving academic performance. It’s about improving the end result of a testing company. ”

Online STAAR testing has had technical issues before. In 2018, the software expelled thousands of students from the test while it was still running and did not let them log back in. In 2016, computer problems across the state affected more than 14,000 tests.

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