TNReady testing, testing and testing and failing

For the third consecutive year, TNReady couldn’t pass the test.

The state’s buggy, beleaguered standardized testing system for grades 3-11 was bogged down by computer glitches and a “deliberate” cyberattack. School districts here and across the state halted or canceled testing for which they have been preparing all year.

The breakdowns shouldn’t have been a surprise. Similar testing disruptions and delays were reported this month in New York, which uses the same testing vendor, Questar Assessments.

Last year test results were delayed for weeks after more than 9,000 Tennessee students received incorrect scores because of a problem with Questar’s scanners.

Questar is the testing company Tennessee hired to replace Measurement Incorporated after TNReady’s catastrophic failure to launch in 2016.

State legislators are blaming Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. Democrats called for her resignation. Republicans summoned her and demanded an explanation.

“We’re tired of it. The state’s tired of it. Our teachers are tired of it, and most of all our students are suffering,” said state Rep. Ron Lollar, R-Bartlett.

As in 2016 and 2017, education officials are wondering whether this year’s tests (if they are completed) should count. “This particular round can’t be used to evaluate teachers,” said Superintendent Ted Horrell of Lakeland. Or schools or school districts. Legislators can fault state education officials for online testing woes, but they share the blame.

In 2014, the legislature, in another tiff with the Obama administration, threw a political wrench into the state’s plan to replace annual TCAP assessments with Common Core-aligned PARCC assessments.

“No educational standards shall be imposed on the state by the federal government,” the legislature said, ordering the state to “contract with one or more entities to provide assessments ... aligned to state standards.”

The state developed its own K-12 standards and assessments, which turned out to be a lot like Common Core and PARCC, only a lot more expensive.

There are alternatives to government-mandated, commercially designed achievement tests.

“Test results are good to see benchmarks where kids are, but we should have multiple measures to determine how a school is doing and what kids are learning,” Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson told his board members last week.

High-stakes achievement tests have turned our schools into testing mills.

“This is a very high-stakes test that impacts student report cards, teacher evaluations and employment, and even determines soon-to-be letter grades for schools and districts,” Jennifer Proseus, a Bartlett parent, told ChalkBeat.

“Why do these faulty tests — that parents and teachers are forbidden from seeing — hold so much power?”

That is the question our next governor, legislature and education commissioner should ask and answer.