Once again, the Tennessee Department of Education has both failed to deliver a usable achievement test and refused to accept responsibility. The email from Commissioner McQueen to Directors of Schools makes it clear that they are blaming everything EXCEPT the department’s continued failures:
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 3:07 PM
Subject: RE: Update on NexteraDirectors,
Let me first express my appreciation at your patience and flexibility with the issue this morning. The issue earlier today was not related to either volume of student testers or a server issue. It was also not a problem with the test delivery system – Nextera – any network or broadband performance, nor any district action. It was not a “crash.” Our understanding from Questar is the issue was related to a conflict between the Classroom Assessment Builder (CAB) and the test delivery system, which previously shared the same log-in system. This conflict immediately caused unacceptable log-in delays for some students. That issue has been resolved, and we feel good going into testing tomorrow.
More than 20,000 test sessions have been started and/or completed since the fix was applied at 10:30 a.m., and the platform worked as anticipated in maintaining students’ progress and allowing students to complete their test despite the log-in issues.
We understand many of you suspended testing today, and we apologize for the unanticipated scheduling changes this issue may have caused. Our hope is that all testing is completed within the three-week testing window and that subpart 1 for English language arts and U.S. history is completed this week. If you believe you will need additional time, please reach out to tned.assessment@tn.gov. However, timeliness is very important to ensuring that score reports and raw scores are delivered on the original timeline.
Finally, we know many of you have experienced long wait times with Questar customer service. We have escalated this issue with them.
Please continue to reach out. Thanks for your coordination with us today.
Candice
Candice McQueen, Ph.D. | Commissioner
Andrew Johnson Tower, 9th Floor
710 James Robertson Parkway, Nashville, TN 37243
p: 615-741-5158
We haven’t been given any indication of what the Department of Education considers to be a “state-wide” issue, but this list of outages, compiled from Facebook posts and personal contacts, looks pretty far-reaching:
Bedford
Bledsoe
Blount
Bradley
Campbell
Carroll
Cheatham
Chester
Coffee
Cumberland
Davidson
Decatur
Dickson
Fayette
Franklin
Greene
Grundy
Hamilton
Henry
Houston
Jefferson
Knox
Lake
Lake County
Macon
Marion
Maryville City
McMinn
Milan SSD
Monroe
Putnam
Roane
Robertson
Rutherford
Shelby
Stewart
Stewart
Sumner
Tipton
Union
Washington
Weakley
Williamson
Wilson
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