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Computer problems derail tests in Escambia County

March 4, 2015
/ Reggie Dogan
/ education

Escambia County schools suspended Florida Standards Assessment testing for the third day in a row on Wednesday because of computer glitches that could jeopardize students’ test results. The district plans to resume computerized testing Thursday if the state can iron out kinks that caused many computers shut down in the middle of writing tests. When the students rebooted and returned to the prompts, they either found that their incomplete writing essays erased or they received a congratulatory message that their tests had been completed, said Malcolm Thomas, superintendent of Escambia County schools. “I’m hearing from across the state there are serious issues with the test,” said Thomas. “This could seriously impact the validity of scores.” The computer problems Wednesday come after several schools across the state on Monday and Tuesday encountered FSA server test administration errors, causing students to lose essays and delays on student logins and a high number of login attempt errors. Multiple school districts from south Florida to Northwest Florida suspended the tests after the online portal problems. State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said a software glitch was to blame for login issues, delays and error messages. In an email to school superintendents Tuesday, Stewart said the issues had been fixed, but the problems kept coming back. The ongoing computer problems prompted two Democratic state senators from South Florida — Sen. Dwight Bullard and Sen. Jeff Clemens — to send letters to Gov. Rick Scott Tuesday, referring to the technical problems as “nothing less than a disaster.” They asked that the governor suspend the state’s standardized testing after two days of technical problems from a software glitch forced some districts to suspend computerized testing. Telephone messages were left for members of Northwest Florida delegation. The testing problems on Wednesday were districtwide in Escambia County, leading to the suspension of the computer-based English/Language Arts writing tests until Thursday at the earliest, Thomas said. There was some speculation that the computer servers couldn’t handle the heavy load of users, but Thomas believes it was not a “load issue.” It won’t be until April when hundreds of thousands of Florida students sign on to take the full-fledged FSA that the computer system will need to handle a large number of users, he said. Schools have until March 12 to administrator all FSA writing tests. For 10^th graders, the results can determine if they will graduate from high school. Thomas is concerned that some students may not graduate if their test results weren’t accurately recorded or incomplete because of computer errors. Schools in Escambia County will postpone testing 10^th graders until the very end next week because their results carry so much more weight, Thomas said. “After seeing the data flow, I don’t know how they will know (how well they did) anyway,” he said. If students aren’t able to finish testing next week, their results won’t get a test score, which would adversely affect their graduation status, test scores as well as schools’ overall scores. For the most part, Monday was a wasted and costly day for the county, Thomas said. Teachers who spent time preparing to give the tests had to shift gears and go back to classroom instruction. The district hired substitute teachers to help with the tests, and they were paid even though the tests had been suspended. School superintendents had warned about potential problems and expressed concerned in recent weeks that they weren’t sure how the new test would pan out, especially in the middle-school and high-school grades. Thomas joined eight superintendents, including Santa Rosa’s Tim Wyrosdick, in a meeting last month in Tallahassee with Gov. Scott and Commissioner Stewart to share concerns about the challenges districts faced with the state tests. Among the recommendations included using this year’s test as a baseline for measuring progress and ensuring that technology was able to handle statewide computer-based testing. There remain serious problems with the computer system, and Thomas hopes the state uses this the results as field test as it works through the kinks. “We need the test, but we need to relieve the pressure on students if they knew there were no consequences,” he said. “At the end of the day, I would hope that cooler heads and common sense would prevail.” The New Service of Florida contributed to this report.

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Computer problems derail tests in Escambia County

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