As Commissioner Stewart hypes FSA cyber-attacks, FDLE dismisses case
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FLDE) quietly closed its Florida Standards Assessment “cyber-attack” investigation this month citing an inability to identify suspects. Not surprisingly, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart ignored the FDLE finding at the September Board of Education (BOE) meeting. Instead, she worked mightily to keep the notion of an unknown cyber-villain alive. BOE Member Gary Chartrand spoke of imagined “motives” and his fear of future attacks from what he calls “anti-test” citizen groups. Is he really implying that parents with laptops are behind the failures of the American Institutes of Research (AIR) server?
Last spring students across the state were repeatedly blocked from logging on to the AIR website while attempting to take the FSA. Their work often disappeared mid-test and many students were locked out and forced to start over the following day. Superintendents at their wits end suspended testingfor days due to confusion.
For years the state used “test security” as the reason to deny parents, teachers and students the transparency of reviewing their tests and understanding exactly how the state arrived at each score. Because of that, it was truly astonishing when no one, including Commissioner Stewart, cared that students saw test questions, went home and came back the next day or even the following week to re-test.
At first, Stewart put the blame on AIR, as this quote from the Tallahassee Democrat illustrates: “The company’s failure to follow protocol is absolutely unacceptable and the department will hold AIR accountable for the disruption they have caused to our state’s students, teachers and school staff,” said Pam Stewart. FSA failures grew exponentially and soon all eyes turned to AIR and Commissioner Stewart.
Determined to deflect blame away from herself, Stewart has repeatedlyAs Commissioner Stewart hypes FSA cyber-attacks, FDLE dismisses case | The Edvocate Blog:
