State education officials have set the last day students will be able to take the TNReady tests, and blamed the testing vendor for its major delay.
Officials with the Department of Education said several schools still haven’t received the test materials from the testing provider.
Yet, even with the issued, they said the testing window will not be extended past May 10.
All districts were still waiting for materials for the elementary and middle schools. The Department of Education said the districts may receive them by April 27. High schools were not affected.
Some districts like Wilson and Sumner counties were supposed to begin testing as early as next week, but those dates have been pushed to May 2.
Several other districts like metro schools were placed on standby in anticipation of delays as well.
Democratic leaders held a news conference on the last day of legislature, and expressed a lot of frustration about the entire process.
“We don't want blame placed on students, on parents, the teachers because they have no blame in this,” said Antonio Parkinson (D) Memphis. “This is strictly on the department of education.”
It was unclear what would happen if students could not test before May 10. They department did not give any details regarding the schools’ next steps for if and when that deadline is missed.
The Department’s Director of Communication released the following statement Friday saying the blame rests on the testing vendor Measurement Inc.:
We remain frustrated with Measurement Inc. (MI) as they have continued to reset their shipping schedules for TCAP and TNReady Part II materials. We are taking action and implementing next steps as a result of this recent delay.
While all districts have received testing materials for high school courses, and districts that have chosen to administer the optional SAT-10 test have those materials as well, grade 3-8 TCAP and TNReady materials are still arriving in districts daily. The department believes it is critical that districts know when to expect their remaining 3-8 materials, but despite our repeated requests, MI has not provided these details. We share our districts’ frustration that we do not know specific delivery timelines due to MI’s failure to provide shipping projections and find this lack of information extremely unsatisfactory.
Under their new shipping schedule, MI has informed us that districts should receive all remaining grade 3-8 testing materials by April 27. Earlier this week, we informed districts about this update from MI and advised them to schedule testing through May 10 based on this information, particularly if they were planning on testing the week of April 25. We also told them to be as flexible as they needed with scheduling, including scheduling over more than five days and skipping a day if needed. We will not ask districts to reschedule again beyond what has been communicated to date, and we will not extend the testing window beyond May 10.
Our priority is for students to end the school year on a strong note, and we do not want state testing to interfere with our students’ end-of-year experience. We do not want district or school officials, educators, students, or parents to have any further unnecessary anxiety or uncertainty, and we again apologize for the extra work and challenges this transition has brought thus far. We are having conversations with district leaders, local stakeholders and advocates, federal officials at the U.S. Department of Education, the governor’s office, and the Tennessee state board of education to discuss our plans for addressing potential cases where districts do not receive all of their materials under the current timeline, and we will be sharing those decisions as soon as they are finalized. We are also working with those same groups to determine what additional flexibility we would propose for district accountability.
We continue to work with our districts individually to address any concerns they may have, and our districts should continue to move forward based on everything we know now. We look forward to sharing more in the coming days, including more details about both this year’s assessment and ongoing conversations with Measurement Inc.
Again, we share the frustration felt by district and classroom educators and sincerely apologize for the impact that MI’s failure to deliver as promised has had on students, parents, teachers, and districts all across Tennessee.
