Tennessee has had years of problems with test vendors. This year, then state thought all the glitches were fixed. Wrong. Thousands of scores were wrong.
About 9,400 students across the state received incorrect scores after the testing vendor, Questar, used a scanning program that included an error.
Our friend and reader Duane Swacker would say that all the scores are meaningless and measure nothing. I just finished reading Daniel Koretz’s new book, “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Improve Education,” and he might agree with Duane. The chances are that the scores have been corrupted by test prep and score inflation. Throw them all out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In other news, thousands of elephants born at zoos received trunks.
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…due to a breeding error.
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Love your comments, SomeDAM Poet. TRUE.
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And as we watch Questar screw up in Tennessee, we should be mindful that New York State contracted with Questar in 2016, or so, to replace Pearson (which became a dirty word here) to deliver a $45 million statewide testing program over five years.
But in the first year, Questar was acquired by testing giant ETS–the US version of Pearson in college admissions testing for more than half a century. At the same time, David Coleman (famously remembered for his “Nobody gives a shit what you think” remark in support of his narrow view of informational reading material) is president of the College Board and uber architect/defender of the Common Core.
The Board has historically been allied with ETS to develop and administer the SAT and other standardized gate-keeping exams. So with Questar now under the aegis of ETS there is a pattern of inbreeding between in the educational measurement industry, as the testing circle remains unbroken and morphs: from norms to standards; from paper to computer; from NCLB to Core, and unto college readiness; and from student testing, to teacher and principal evaluation, to elaborate unworkable accountability formulas.
And one generation begat the next, and they all kept getting richer.
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AGREE: “… they all kept getting richer.” BINGO.
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exactly
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Survival of the fit-test
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And…Utah just signed up with Questar for a new test. Wonderful. http://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2017/10/13/goodbye-sage-utah-board-of-education-picks-selects-new-vendor-for-statewide-testing/
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Twenty five years ago, when we could look at the test, a friend of mine noticed a bad question on the test that was given to assess learning then. Thinking that the state should be aware of this, he called someone. Little did he know. He was completely unable to get satisfaction, despite getting professors for major colleges to write on his behalf, giving an interview to a local TV channel, and even figuring the probability that the state department was telling the truth.
Anyone who believes this problem is confined to a few thousand tests is being naive. None of the test are verifiably remotely related to the vague and general standards. Supposedly, we will get to see the test questions at some point. Will we really? How can you trust them? They have no credibility whatsoever.
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