Florida repeatedly warned about an untested test for students
When students from Key West to Pensacola tried to log on to the state’s new and supposedly improved tests for the first time last week, all the dire predictions of school leaders, teachers unions and parents came true.
"Catastrophic meltdown," was how the superintendent of Florida's largest school district, Miami-Dade’s Alberto Carvalho, characterized the rollout of the computerized tests.
With slow and sporadic performance lasting for much of the week, the Florida Department of Education came under criticism for its handling of the debacle. The problems — echoing the glitch-marred ObamaCare website debut — also emboldened critics who have consistently complained that the state is moving too fast in implementing new assessments.
Large districts, like the ones in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, are particularly concerned that a second round of testing in April could prove more disastrous. More students will be taking math tests that require even more computing power to create number lines and drag-and-drop items on the screen.
State education leaders did not respond to multiple requests for comment but the department has blamed the ongoing technical problems on the test provider American Institutes for Research, which Commissioner Pam Stewartrevealed late last week was still tinkering on the eve of the first tests.
“What happened was AIR did an update to their system the day before testing began,” Stewart explained to a Florida House of Representatives education committee. “Admittedly that was the wrong timing and it caused them some issues with data retrieval.”
In an email to the Miami Herald, the company took “full responsibility” for the issues.
“Once we were able to identify the problem, we promptly resolved it and we are pleased that Florida remains on track to complete testing during the initial two-week window,” a company spokesman wrote.
For critics, the stumbling beginning was far from surprising. From the start, they’ve warned that the state’s process of adopting new, tougher education standards — and the standardized tests to go along with them — was rushed and mired in politics.
Florida had initially planned to use assessments being developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers — based on the controversial “Common Core” standards. But in 2013, amid protests from Tea Party groups about federal overreach in education, Gov. Rick Scott ordered Florida to withdraw from the multi-state consortium and create its own tests.
That process to replace the old Florida Comprehensive Assessment TestFlorida repeatedly warned about an untested test for students | Miami Herald Miami Herald:
