State should suspend use of TNReady

The superintendents of Tennessee’s two largest public school systems are asking the state to “hit the pause button” on TNReady, the state’s buggy, beleaguered standardized testing system.

That, they suggested, would give the next governor and education commissioner time to “convene a statewide working group of educators to sort out the myriad challenges” and rebuild confidence in the K-12 assessment system.

“We are writing to join a growing number of districts, legislators, teachers, parents and students in expressing concerns about the lack of reliability of the TNReady assessment system,” wrote Shelby County Schools Director Dorsey Hopson and Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Shawn Joseph, whose districts represent 20 percent of all public school students in the state.

“After years of repeated implementation failures and missteps by multiple vendors, we believe educator and public trust in TNReady has fallen to irretrievably low levels . ... When basic delivery is botched, it’s difficult to trust the fundamental integrity of the underlying assessment.”

They also noted that districts have spent millions of dollars over the past few years on technology to prepare for TNReady tests that didn’t happen or didn’t count. That’s not even counting the millions of dollars taxpayers also have sent to big corporations for testing materials.

“By the time the state achieves a fully functioning online assessment system, our original investments will have been rendered obsolete — and we will be forced to send another large technology bill to our mayors, county commission and Metro council,” they wrote.

The two superintendents sent their warning letter to Gov. Bill Haslam and Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. Sstate officials have heard similar concerns from boards or superintendents in Johnson, Wilson and Williamson counties.

TNReady testing earlier this year was disrupted by a cyberattack, a dump truck that cut a fiber-optic cable, and other problems. So many districts had so many problems with Questar’s online testing, legislators intervened and said TNReady results wouldn’t hurt students, teachers or districts.

In 2017, test results were delayed for weeks after thousands of 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 its first year, 2016.

Now, as this new school year begins, state officials are marching on with the same testing company. The state plans to spend an extra $12.5 million to hire ETS to handle parts of the testing previously handled by Questar.

ETS purchased Questar in 2017 for $127.5 million. Despite its back-to-back failures, Questar will continue to handle TNReady’s tests in math and English language arts.

Learning is good. Testing is not teaching or learning.

It’s time for classroom educators to take over the state’s corporate testing system and turn it around.