Texas STAR testing canceled for many after technical issues Tuesday

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Education officials in Texas have advised districts to suspend the first day of STAR tests after thousands of students showed up in person and were prevented from taking the standardized test online due to widespread technical problems across the state.

‘If your students were able to access the test, they should continue with the test. “If your students did not have access to the test, they should be discharged from the test until the problem is resolved,” reads the message from the Texas Education Agency.

Officials in Texas have instructed students to personally take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness to monitored test rooms this year, though millions of students are still doing their studies remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The disruptions affected the districts that conducted the tests online, ranging from slow response times to students who were unable to report for the test. Writing tests for fourth and seventh graders were interrupted, as well as English I tests for high school students, according to TEA. Online tests will resume on Wednesday.

TEA plans to switch the test fully online by the academic year 2022-23. In districts that also planned to take paper tests at Scantrons, students taking the versions could continue testing.

“We understand the frustration caused by students, parents, teachers and administrators,” the TEA statement said. “What happened today is completely unacceptable.”

The TEA message investigates the issue according to the TEA message, one of the companies the state contracts to develop and administer the test. STAR tests, depending on their topic, usually have a limit of four or five hours, and the test is scheduled to take place until May 14th.

Dr Henry, superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, said online tests had been declining nationwide since before 9 p.m.

Students at Austin ISD waited almost two hours in person to take the test. Dick Frazier, a music teacher at Austin ISD, also said there was a shortage of devices in his district for all the students who showed up to take the online test.

“In some cases, these children have never been to our school because they were in the pandemic last year and were in the pandemic this year,” Frazier said.

Although the test is required this year, there is no fine for primary and middle schoolers who do not show up or who pass the STAR test this year. Texas officials said the test did not affect students’ ability to move to the next grade.

However, high school students must pass five subject-specific courses by the time they study, a requirement that will not be waived this year. Henry said it was ‘stupid’ to expect students to take a standardized test in person this week, and he wrote the pressure to apply the STAR this year to the state’s $ 64 million contract with the test company .

“There’s a lot of pressure on people to make sure the contracts are met,” Henry said. ‘This test is therefore not about improving academic performance. It’s about improving a test company’s conclusion. ”

Online STAR testing has previously encountered technical issues. In 2018, software kicked thousands of students out of the test while it was still running and did not let them sign up again. In 2016, computer problems worldwide affected more than 14,000 tests.

Disclosure: Educational Testing Service is a financial backer of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations, and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune‘‘s journalism. Find a complete list of these.