NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The State of Tennessee Department of Education has officially terminated its contract with Measurement Inc. effective immediately.
Measurement Inc. is the company that deliver all needed testing materials for the TNReady assessment.
What does this mean for your child and state testing?
The state says all high school testing will continue as planned.
However, it is being forced to suspend grade 3-8 testing this school year due to the shipping delays.
According to Education Commissioner Candice McQueen, the company has failed to meet shipping deadlines four times in the past month.
The most recent deadline was Wednesday.
More than two million documents have yet to be shipped.
The latest embarrassment followed problems with Phase 1 of the tests back in February.
That’s when the vendor failed to have an online version of the test ready for schools on other subjects.
“Upon learning of the final delay we immediately and repeatedly requested specific delivery dates to districts which M.I. said they were unable to provide,” said Commissioner Candice McQueen.
“Measurement Inc.’s performance is deeply disappointing. We’ve exhausted every option in problem solving with this vendor to assist them in getting these tests delivered,” Commissioner McQueen said. “Districts have exceeded their responsibility and obligation to wait for grade 3-8 materials, and we will not ask districts to continue waiting on a vendor that has repeatedly failed us.”
The President of Measurement, Inc. confirmed to WTVF they missed the Wednesday deadline, but said they have scheduled the more than 400,000 tests and answer booklets still sitting in their building to be shipped Saturday.
The school districts were scheduled to have everything in-house by Monday, May 2.
The state will not test past May 10.
The Memphis Shelby County Education Association said canning the test poses questions for the future.
“I don’t know how they will assess the curriculum. I don’t know how that will play into teacher evaluations. It is a huge part of the evaluation process. This test is actually used to fire teachers in some instances. How that will happen next year I don’t know,” said Executive Director MSCEA Keith Williams.
Those school districts who have received all of the materials for a complete grade have the option to test, but performance information will be limited.
The Germantown Municipal School District announced it has not received complete testing materials for any subject in grades three through eight, so it will not administer the tests for those grade levels.
Shelby County Schools released the following statement to WREG:
“The constant changes with regard to this year’s TNReady testing have been challenging, but we applaud the Tennessee Department of Education for keeping us updated along the way.
SCS has elected, per the State’s option, to suspend testing for all students in Grades 3-8 due to Measurement Inc.’s failed delivery of testing materials. Although this testing period has been tumultuous, we are pleased that the State is providing districts, teachers and students with flexibility in performance and evaluation as they continue to work to provide us with a quality annual assessment.”
On Wednesday, Commissioner McQueen said she understands that these annual assessments play a role in the teaching and learning process.
“While we are disappointed that we will not receive complete data for every student from this year’s state assessment, we will use all available data to provide feedback to educators. We will also share as much information as possible with schools and students related to Part I testing for grades 3-8. This will be used for informational purposes only and no score will be associated with Part I for grades 3-8. High school tests will be scored, as they were for the students who are on block schedule and already took the test. These results will be delivered this coming fall.
In addition, the department will work with the state board of education to address district accountability this year. While the state and districts will still collect and report all available student performance information, the department is proposing to eliminate district performance designations, such as “Exemplary” or “In Need of Improvement.” All reportable data, such as graduation rate, average ACT scores, and high school TCAP scores, will still be publicly reported on the state Report Card in the fall.
Today’s announcement also doesn’t change the flexibility that has already been provided on teacher evaluation. If a teacher has TNReady data, in this case high school teachers, TNReady data will only be used if it helps the teacher. If a teacher does not have TNReady data, their evaluation will rely on data from prior
years.”
The state is working to find a new vendor for the next school year.
It’s also working with the federal government to make sure it is meeting all proper protocols.