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Glitches Continue As 2,400 More Students Affected
By Michael Alison Chandler
An online glitch interrupted state-required testing for 2,400 Virginia students for 20 minutes on Thursday afternoon, the third such mishap within a week, state education officials said.
Some local school officials said they will scrutinize test results to determine whether the series of interruptions took a toll on the scores.
"With a high-stakes test, there's a lot on the line. Kids get understandably upset if things get interrupted," said Wayde B. Byard, spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools. "Down the road, we will have to look at the academic integrity of these tests."
Students this month are taking Standards of Learning tests that are used to determine whether schools comply with state standards and measure up under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The federal law requires math and reading tests for students in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. Schools face sanctions if they don't meet annual benchmarks and improve their scores over time. Virginia laws also require students to pass end-of-year high school exams to graduate.
State officials said technicians from the testing vendor Pearson Educational Measurement, based in Iowa, have worked long hours to respond to the problems. But the glitches have compounded stress for many students who prepare all year for tests and for administrators who must work overtime to schedule and reschedule exams.
The most recent interruption began at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, causing a blue warning screen to flash on some test takers' computers. About 2,400 students statewide were logged on at the time, and of those, 23 will have to take tests again, said Virginia Education Department spokesman Charles Pyle.
State officials said the problem was caused by a glitch in the vendor's software and was unrelated to Tuesday's breakdown, when a problem with the server meant that 6,000 students could not finish their tests. Many of them were required to start over. On May 10, another system failure interrupted 1,300 tests in 13 school divisions.
In Fauquier County, Thursday's glitch happened about five minutes after the last student had finished testing, and Fairfax County officials reported interruptions for only three students. But in Loudoun, about 450 students lost connection at least once Thursday afternoon, and 150 more started tests late because they had difficulty logging on. All of the Loudoun students eventually finished the tests.
State and local officials said they are worried that the stress of stopping and starting may distract students and diminish their performance. "Obviously, the fewer disruptions the better," Pyle said.
He added that the state plans to investigate what went wrong and how it could have been prevented. "We believe in accountability for our schools, our students, and also for our vendor," he said.
— Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post
2007-05-19
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