On the Futility of State Testing

In the latest edition of The Education Report, I write about standardized testing and note that Tennessee’s version has seen its share of problems.

Here’s more from that piece:

State standardized testing is supposed to help identify areas in public education that need improvement – and is often used to highlight achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status. However, a new piece in Jacobin suggests that high-stakes testing has done little to help in this regard and may, in fact, be creating more problems than it solves.

When we sort children into “proficient” and “failing” categories based on test scores, we’re not solving the opportunity gaps that show up in public education; we’re creating new ones. No one is helped, and many people are hurt, when we give students, teachers, and schools an impossible assignment and then sanction them for failing to complete it. Looking forward to the ESEA’s now overdue reauthorization, it’s high time we built accountability systems that nurture the humanity and potential of all kids — rather than placing artificial roadblocks in their way.

Tennessee’s experience with standardized testing has certainly been problematic.

It’s difficult to say this particular iteration of the state’s testing system has done anything helpful. Still, this year, the results determined whether or not third graders would be allowed to move on to fourth grade.

Previous analysis of the state’s testing system found it to be a solid way to identify the relative concentration of poverty in a school district – but otherwise, not really useful at all.

An analysis of TCAP performance over time indicates that those school systems with consistently high levels of poverty tend to have consistently low scores on TCAP. Likewise, those systems with the least amount of poverty tend to have consistently higher scores on TCAP.

Nevertheless, Tennessee’s testing vendor, Pearson, recently received a $40 million increase in its contract.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Funding Failure: Testing Vendor Gets $40 Million Increase

Amid third grade controversy, Pearson collects more cash

Tennessee standardized testing vendor Pearson will soon be collecting $40 million more thanks to Gov. Bill Lee’s administration extending and adding to the testing company’s contract.

Tennessee Lookout has more:

Amid uproar over third-grade reading scores and the prospect of thousands of failing students, Tennessee lawmakers extended the testing vendor’s contract and bumped up the total payout by nearly $40 million.

The Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Review Committee voted Wednesday to tack on another year for British-based NCS Pearson to administer TNReady and increase the total contract to $132 million from $93 million. The state previously paid $30 million a year to Questar to handle its main K-12 test.

Pearson became the state’s testing vendor of choice after Tennessee had a difficult time transitioning to online tests several years ago:

Pearson’s lobbying expenditure reports show the company spends between $25,000-$50,000 a year to influence lawmakers.

I’m guessing the $40 million contract increase is considered by the testing vendor to be a pretty solid ROI for those expenses.

bitcoins and u s dollar bills
Photo by David McBee on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

The Least Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s TNReady trouble time – an annual event in Tennessee

Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again. The time of TNReady troubles.

This year, of course, the TNReady issue is compounded with a new and ridiculous third grade retention law.

We’ll start there.

As a result of the devastating new law, third grade students who didn’t meet a certain score on the ELA portion of TNReady this year are subject to being held back. To avoid that fate, they can participate in summer school and possibly have a tutor in 4th grade.

If those options don’t work, or they don’t complete summer school, the student will repeat third grade.

Since the test had much higher stakes this year than normal, the TN Department of Education offered the opportunity for students to retake the test if they fell into the score category requiring retention.

Those retakes were set for this week.

Here’s how that went:

My district ran into tech issues today with the 3rd grade retest. Our kids sat for over an hour after trying unsuccessfully to log in.

This type of issue – a technical difficulty with accessing the test – happened in a number of districts across the state.

So, imagine being a third grader at the end of your school year. You find out you have to retake an 85 minute test you’ve already taken. If you don’t do well enough, you have to go to summer school and possibly repeat third grade.

No pressure at all, right?

Then you show up for your retake and you’re ready to go and you have to wait for an hour or two while some tech issues are worked out.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve waited and are now likely extra anxious. This is it.

This test counts. For a lot – especially in the life of a 9-year-old.


Of course, this isn’t the first time TNReady has had problems. In fact, just about every single year the test has been administered, there have been challenges.

This year, many districts did not receive the necessary scores in time to include them in student grades. Here’s how Clarksville-Montgomery County describes the situation:

CMCSS will not include the TCAP/EOC state standardized test results as part of students’ final grades this school year. In accordance with T.C.A. § 49-1-617 and District policy, students’ TCAP scores will not be included in their final spring semester grades if the scores are not received by the District at least five instructional days before the end of the academic year. CMCSS did not receive scores in time.

Although scores will not be included in semester grades, in accordance with state law, the third-grade ELA TCAP score, or retest score, is still being used to determine the pathways to fourth-grade promotion unless a student is exempt from third-grade retention. CMCSS received scores from the state last Friday afternoon and processed through the weekend. Families of students at-risk for retention began receiving communications last Sunday regarding the retest and next steps.

Here’s an update from Sumner County:

So, the scores don’t count for a student’s grades, but they can be used to determine whether or not a student needs to take another test in the last days of the academic year.


Not only are there recurring technical issues with TNReady, it is important to note what the test actually measures:

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Hillsdale Charters and Common Core

An Alternative Plan for Using TN’s $2 Billion Budget Surplus

What’s the Big Deal?

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Germantown School District’s letter in response to Gov. Bill Lee’s education agenda as passed in the January special legislative session. Specifically, I noted that Germantown expressed concern about SB 7001, which heavily incentivizes districts to reach 80% participation in TNReady testing – testing that must take place in-person.

Why does this even matter? Well, as the Germantown Board points out, a number of families have chosen to have students participate in remote-only learning in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Requiring those students to return to school in-person may very well be a difficult, it not impossible, task.

So what?

Well, if your district doesn’t reach the magic 80% threshold, the district is subject to a range of potential penalties, including receiving a “letter grade” from the state about the quality of schools and the possibility of having schools assigned to the failed Achievement School District.

First of all, there shouldn’t be any testing at all this academic year due to the pandemic and the huge disruption it has been and continues to be for teachers and learners.

Second, in the best of circumstances, the TNReady test is of limited value. Specifically, our state has struggled to even properly administer a test.

Third, really? Testing this year? Despite what the Biden Administration says, it’s just a very bad idea.

While this legislation aligns with what House Education Committee Chair Mark White calls a “carrot and stick” approach, it seems rather counterproductive.

So, if you can’t get your district to the magic 80%, there could be all sorts of potentially negative impacts.

There’s actually some history with the Department of Education punishing districts that don’t reach arbitrary targets.

Will the General Assembly move to correct this mess soon, or will they allow the Commissioner of Education broad discretion to use suspect data to advance a school privatization agenda?

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support$5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

What Passes for Rigor

Nashville education blogger TC Weber takes on the recently released CREDO study of supposed student learning loss in his most recent post. It’s the study relied on by Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn as she doubles down both on the need for kids to return to in-person instruction AND the critical need for ever more testing.

Here’s one paragraph that stood out to me:

Third, the need for rigorous student-level learning assessments has never been higher. In particular, this crisis needs strong diagnostic assessments and frequent progress checks, both of which must align with historical assessment trends to plot a recovery course. The losses presented here implicitly endorse a return to student achievement testing with the same assessment tools for the foreseeable future. At the same time, preserving and expanding the existing series is the only way to reliably track how well states and districts are moving their schools through recovery and into the future.

That’s directly from CREDO. Yes, they’re saying we need to continue with the testing regime we have. Since the folks at CREDO seem so interested in testing that aligns with “historical assessment trends,” let’s take a brief look at just how well testing has gone in Tennessee over the past few years.

To say that TNReady has been disappointing would be an understatement. From day one, the test has been fraught with challenges. There have been three vendors in five years, and a range of issues that caused one national expert to say:

“I’m not aware of a state that has had a more troubled transition” to online testing, said Douglas A. Levin of the consulting group EdTech Strategies.

Here’s more from the TNNotReady chronicles:

Hackers. Dump Trucks. Lies. Three vendors over five years. A broken system that sucks the life out of instructional time. That’s what CREDO and Commissioner Schwinn want to continue. Make no mistake, this is not about what’s good for Tennessee kids – it’s most definitely about what’s good for national testing companies and the Commissioner’s career aspirations.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support$5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Donate Button

#CancelTNReady

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, calls are rising for the State of Tennessee to cancel the annual student assessment known as TNReady. If followed, this would be the second consecutive year the test did not happen. TNReady has a troubled history, with three testing vendors over five years and a slew of problems.

Here’s more on the latest debate from Chalkbeat:

Tennessee’s simmering debate over standardized testing is heating up during the pandemic as key education groups clash over whether the state should remove the burden of testing from school communities for a second straight year.

Groups began lining up both for and against testing after Superintendent Joris Ray, who leads the state’s largest district in Memphis, announced Monday that he will petition Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn to take steps to drop the annual assessment known as TNReady in 2020-21

In addition to Ray, the Tennessee Education Association has expressed support for suspending the test in the coming year.

Meanwhile, pro-testing lobby group SCORE continues to push a narrative that says the failed test is a necessary tool:

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more — makes publishing education news possible.

Truly Disturbing

Will TNReady be ready this year? Some employees at the Tennessee Department of Education are raising alarms, according to a story from Fox 17 in Nashville.

The story details emails from whistleblowers within the department who call the current work environment “truly disturbing.” The complaints note that staffing issues — an unusually high turnover rate — are creating problems with preparation for this year’s assessment:

The three whistleblowers which wrote to FOX 17 News all requested anonymity to protect their professional careers. Their ultimate concern with the new hires and staff turnover is that the state is unprepared to administer a successful TCAP — the test that measures success in the classroom. Even at full staff, the state has had problems effectively administering the test in the past. Several have left the assessment team including the two individuals with the most experience in “assessment content and logistics.”

An employee still with the department sums up her concerns by saying, “There is a complete lack of urgency or understanding regarding the human resource needs to launch an effective assessment in support of the districts, schools, teachers, students and parents of Tennessee.”

To say that TNReady has been disappointing would be an understatement. From day one, the test has been fraught with challenges. There have been three vendors in five years, and a range of issues that caused one national expert to say:

“I’m not aware of a state that has had a more troubled transition” to online testing, said Douglas A. Levin of the consulting group EdTech Strategies.

So, here we go again. Another year, another warning about potential TNReady trouble. Now, of course, we’re also stuck with a Governor who seems not to know or care about how to run government effectively.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support$5 or more today — makes publishing education news possible.



Not Worth It

That’s how teachers view standardized testing in Tennessee, according to a statewide survey.

The Cookeville Herald-Citizen reports on attitudes toward standardized testing (TNReady) among teachers in Putnam County and notes the results are similar statewide:


Most teachers in Putnam County say information received from statewide standardized exams is not worth the investment of time and effort.
The results come from the state’s 2019 Tennessee Educator Survey released Thursday.
The state Department of Education said more than 45,000 Tennessee educators completed this year’s survey, representing 62 percent of the state’s teachers — an all-time high response rate. In Putnam County, 80 percent of the teachers took the survey, as did 88 percent of administrators.
According to the results, 62 percent of Putnam teachers either disagreed or strongly disagreed that standardized testing was worth the effort. Statewide, that percentage was 63 percent.

It’s no surprise that educators find little value in TNReady given the challenges with test delivery over the past five years:


We moved from a different type of test to an online test that failed to a paper test, to another online failure, and back to a paper test. Can we really measure any actual growth based on those circumstances?

It will be interesting to see how lawmakers and Governor Lee respond to this crisis of confidence in state testing. I suspect many promises will be made and, ultimately, nothing will change.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support makes publishing education news possible.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

At the end of June, Pearson signed a two-year, $40 million contract to takeover the failed TNReady test. This is the third vendor in the five year history of the new, supposedly better test.

This is a role Pearson has played before. When the first TNReady vendor, Measurement, Inc. failed to deliver, Pearson came to the rescue. The effort earned the testing giant $18.5 million.

Here’s the problem: Pearson seems to have a habit of failing to keep student data secure. Two recent stories out of Illinois and Nevada raise questions about the ability of Pearson to protect student information.

From the Kane County Chronicle in Illinois:


Both school districts have notified parents that they recently learned from Pearson Clinical Assessment that the company experienced a data security incident related to their AIMSweb 1.0 product by an unauthorized third party. The districts used AIMSweb 1.0 to track student academic progress and are among 13,000 Pearson clients impacted by this incident.

And from the Nevada Review Journal:


More than 650,000 Nevada students had personal information exposed in a data breach announced this week by the state’s two largest school districts, prompting internet safety advocates to urge parental caution with products children use online.


The breach involved Pearson Clinical Assessment’s software program known as Aimsweb 1.0, which is used for screening and assessment.

This is not exactly a reassuring restart of Tennessee’s relationship with Pearson.

Maybe, though, they can effectively administer an online test without problems?

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support helps make publishing education news possible.

Happy TNReady Week

Williamson County School Board member Eric Welch offers this commentary on TNReady and vouchers:

HAPPY TN READY WEEK!!! Are you excited???

Oh wow…..that’s a lot of one finger salutes….😟.

So you’re saying you aren’t a fan of the state’s mandated TN Ready testing and your satisfaction levels so far are akin to the Comcast customer service line?

Well you may want to stop reading now because the fact is that under the proposed Voucher bills currently before the Tennessee legislature, those tests are just for your kids. Those using public dollars for private for-profit schools in the form of vouchers wouldn’t be subject to the same apples-to-apples testing requirement.

According to Chalkbeat:

“Students receiving education savings accounts — a newer kind of voucher now under consideration by the Tennessee General Assembly — would have to take half as many tests as their counterparts in public schools.

The retreat in accountability for a proposed pilot program even has some of the new Republican governor’s supporters scratching their heads.

“I would think that we would want the recipients to go through the full battery of assessments that students in public schools would receive,” said freshman Rep. Charlie Baum, a Republican from Murfreesboro, of the need to “compare apples to apples” in measuring the program’s success.”

Testing Time

Here’s a link to the TN Department of Education’s page on testing times for various grade levels.

The information on the site indicates that students in 3rd grade can expect to spend 5 hours and 45 minutes testing. Of course, this all happens over a week, and means students effectively lose days of instructional time.

This year, many Tennessee students are taking tests on pencil and paper since our TNDOE can’t predict when hackers or dump trucks will attack the integrity of our state’s tests.

Next year, as we shift to a new vendor, we’ll also see students take pencil and paper tests. Then, back to online TNReady for testing in the 2020-21 academic year.

No word from our new Commissioner of Education on amending our state’s ESSA application to change testing formats or move away from annual testing altogether.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support — $3 or $6 or more — helps make reporting education news possible.

Donate Button