State Lawmakers Pass Fix To Testing Problems

Teachers, students, and school districts will not suffer from the results of this year’s state assessment test.

Following a week of issues with the TN-Ready test, lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that makes sure teachers, students and school districts will not be harmed by the results.

“It’s one of those things where the trust was already eroded from previous years,” Cookeville State Representative Ryan Williams said. “It’s tough to see that, but if it were a letter grade, it definitely wouldn’t be an A.”

The legislation says this year’s test scores will not count unless they positively impact a school district, teacher, or student.

After years of problems with the state assessment, state lawmakers fumed for much of this week as text and calls started rolling in about even more TN-Ready issues.

Williams said he was contacted by Putnam County Director of Schools Jerry Boyd several times about challenges that the school system was having.

The school system briefly postponed testing on Monday and completely suspended testing on Tuesday after an external source deliberately attacked the TN-Ready testing system.

“Other than than that, I haven’t heard from anyone except my son and two constituents back home via Facebook message,” Williams said. “The two parents I heard from said we needed to do something so that this doesn’t count against their son or daughter’s education.”

Williams, who also serves as Republican Caucus Chairman, isn’t backing a bill that seeks to go back to paper testing.

“It sounds great in theory, but if we went back to that, we would be one of nine states that didn’t do online testing,” Williams said. “It’s not the online testing that’s the issue. It’s the company, their data center, their log on, and the technology aspect of it. They’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Williams said he wouldn’t be surprised if Governor Bill Haslam or the new governor decides to go with a brand new testing company in the future.

Lawmakers spent this week grilling Education Commissioner Candice McQueen over the testing issues, some even calling for McQueen to step down. Williams said the issue lies with the the testing company and not McQueen.

“I think she has done a great job under the circumstances and she’s by far better than the previous commissioner,” Williams said. “She’s really good with the legislature and she understands the state. I think it’s unfortunate that some of my colleagues try to make her the issue when it was actually the company.”

More discussion on how to handle the TN-Ready testing problems will likely occur early next week.