Online Assessment Tests Halted in Palm Beach County
By CRA News Service
The School District of Palm Beach County on Tuesday joined several other counties in suspending Florida Standards Assessment testing for some students in grades 8, 9 and 10 after technical glitches plagued the systems.
As testing got underway Monday, at least 10 district-operated and charter schools reported problems. While some students were not able to log into the online system, others were booted out halfway through the test.
“The school district is suspending the computer-based tests so as not to frustrate students who may experience technical issues and to protect instructional time as the state works to resolve these challenges on assessments that are high-stakes and, for some students, tied to graduation,” according to a news release from the district.
Schools will maintain a normal class schedule until the testing resumes. We will provide an update as to Thursday’s testing as soon as it is available.
Students in eighth, ninth and tenth grades began taking the writing portion of the Florida Standards Assessment on Monday. Later this month, they will take the English language arts and math portions. Those tests are conducted on computers. Students in fourth through seventh grades will begin taking the writing test on March 10, and will use paper and pencil, the district said in a release.
Schools have a two-week window to complete the writing exam.
State education officials said 36 school districts reported problems.
“While many students across our state are testing successfully, we have heard from some districts that are experiencing difficulties,” Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said in a statement. “This is a 90-minute test; students have a two-week window, plus a makeup window, to complete the test. Commissioner [Pam] Stewart is looking into any reported issues to determine the cause and will work to immediately resolve it.”
The districts experiencing glitches included some of the state’s biggest school systems. Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Volusia, and Duval county districts reported problems, according to media reports.
The new tests, developed by American Institutes for Research, a major testing organization, replace the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCATs).
The Washington-based AIR, which is paid roughly $220 million for the contract, issued a statement accepting the blame for the woes.
“AIR Assessment, the organization delivering the tests for Florida, accepts full responsibility for the difficulty,” the organization said. “We updated student data, which was not immediately available to the testing servers. When students logged onto the test, the servers were forced to reach out to other databases to get the necessary student information. This substantially degraded performance. This data is now available to the testing servers, so the problem should not recur.”
When the FSA was field tested in Utah, more than half of the students failed. Officials said the students struggled because the new standards are much harder.
Those who fail the FSA will have other options to be promoted to the next grade.
