Readers Report that Computers Crashed in Minnesota, Tennessee, and Nevada Disrupting Testing

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1. Howard Beale says:

   April 14, 2015 at 10:55 pm

   Minnesota: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/04/14/statewide-testing-glitch

   Reply
2. Steve Bistrup says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:00 pm

   I’m a technology coordinator for a school district in Minnesota and I can confirm that Pearson servers crashed on 4/15/2015. Moreover, Java and Flash updates were released on the same day which has resulted in having to reconfigure all of our testing computers in the middle of testing “season.” Extremely frustrating.

   Reply
3. Angie Sullivan says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:16 pm

   My school in Las Vegas Nevada did not start testing because there was a large amount of inputting to do to prepare – and no one did it. Everyone was running around trying to fix the bandwidth to run the test since last year was such a fiasco. So my poor lit specialist was blurry eyed from typing every name in the school into the program over two or three days. Billions of dollars and data everywhere and it has to be manually input?

   I cannot blame my principal for being cautious since it was scary last year and almost made my five star school become a turnaround. He said he wants to wait until next week. Hopefully all the bugs will be worked out since 50% of everyone’s evaluation will be test scores . . . and we are not off to a great start.

   So tomorrow the kids start the CRT Science – unfortunately the at-risk kids at my school were busy preparing for language arts and math and writing . . . no one taught them science. Not enough hours in the day.

   It’s not looking good.

   This is what education has become – a circus with multiple hoops that are a moving craxy target.

   Reply
   • cary444 (@cary444) says:

     April 15, 2015 at 11:54 am

     This is just madness. I can only guess what my own school will be like next year when we go to online testing (we got away with paper pencil this year since we didn’t have enough computers), yahoo!

     Reply
4. Old Teacher says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:18 pm

   My school in Clark County burned out a server. We can not run the secure browser, and the program runs in spurts then locks up. Our school has cancelled the test until further notice. We are a four day rural school so time is running out.

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5. Concerned Parent says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:34 pm

   My child began testing today in Clark County, NV. The server crashed as she was taking the test. Kudos to our admin and staff who stopped the test until the problem could be found out and resolved. However, now we have students who have to finish the section of the test tomorrow when they should have been done today.

   Reply
6. Angie Sullivan says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:34 pm

   http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2015/apr/14/computer-glitch-halts-common-core-testing-nevada/

   This is affecting multiple states.

   Reply
7. Angie Sullivan says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:35 pm

   Computer glitch halts Common Core testing in Nevada
   By Ian Whitaker (contact)
   Tuesday, April 14, 2015 | 6:30 p.m.

   Nevada’s students haven’t been able to take computerized standardized tests since Tuesday morning because of technical problems.

   According to the Nevada Department of Education, a spike in students taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) this morning in Nevada, Montana and North Dakota exceeded the data capacity of Measured Progress, a third-party vendor contracted by the states to provide the test.

   All testing in the three states has been stopped until Measured Progress can increase its data capacity, according to an email sent to state superintendents today by state deputy superintendent Steve Canavero.

   Students who were taking the test at the time of the problem were able to finish their test, but teachers could not start new tests. About 13,000 tests were completed this morning before the errors started occurring, according to the department.

   “We hope to have the tests up and running tomorrow,” said department spokeswoman Judy Osgood.

   The SBAC requires an Internet connection and a computer powerful enough to take the test.

   This year marks the first time the tests have been rolled out in Nevada. Though they have previously been field-tested by state students, the assessments are now officially being taken by students in third through eighth grades.

   They replaced the older CRT state tests and are designed to assess students’ mastery of Nevada’s new Common Core reading and math standards.

   The SBAC was developed by UCLA and is offered to any state that pays a yearly admission fee. Nevada pays upward of $1 million a year to be able to administer the test, and is one of 18 states on the SBAC governing board.

   The test is one of two Common Core assessments currently offered in the United States, the other one being the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

   Reply
8. Arthur Gamboa says:

   April 14, 2015 at 11:36 pm

   From Clark County, Nevada…http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2015/apr/14/computer-glitch-halts-common-core-testing-nevada/

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9. Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

   April 15, 2015 at 12:09 am

   Here’s one that may be useful to you. You may already have this. Thank you, Diane.

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/28/computer-troubles-mar-standardized-testing-in-multiple-states/

   Reply
10. Joe Nathan says:

    April 15, 2015 at 6:30 am

    Here’s a link to a front page story in the St Paul Pioneer Press (it has the second largest daily circulation in Minnesota)

    http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_27914106/minnesota-student-assessments-snarled-by-computer-crash

    Reply
11. Dienne says:

    April 15, 2015 at 6:53 am

    To whatever extent tests are valid, reliable, useful, etc. under the best of conditions (which is virtually nil), these “glitches” erase whatever validity/usability there is. In order to have any meaning whatsoever, testing conditions of a standardized test must be, well, standardized. If there was a gas leak in the middle of a pencil and paper test and the building had to be evacuated, everyone would recognize that that would invalidate the test. But since it’s “just” a computer “glitch”, the powers that be just shrug like this is expected business as usual.

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12. Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

    April 15, 2015 at 10:44 am

    Direct evidence why education should NOT be run by software. Anyone who thinks education by software is good is an idiot. My husband is an attitude control systems engineer and he laughs at all this idiocy. He knows what software can and cannot do. Before his last job of 30 years, he was a classroom teacher in an inner-city junior high public school. His has often told me that his job as a teacher was harder than developing attitude control systems for satellites. Essentially his job entailed measuring starlight and developing original mathematical algorithism …more straightforward and a whole lot easier than teaching.

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13. Susan says:

    April 15, 2015 at 11:10 am

    Big surprise. I work with technology, and this happens all the time. I totally disagree with online testing – for this reason and for the reason that the hardware costs districts money that they don’t have.

    Reply
14. justateacher says:

    April 16, 2015 at 9:13 am

    http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/common-core-testing-halted-schools-nevada-2-other-states

    Reply