EDUCATION

Thousands of TNReady tests scored incorrectly

Jennifer Pignolet Jason Gonzales
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Candice McQueen

About 9,400 TNReady assessment tests across the state were scored incorrectly, according to the Tennessee Department of Education.

The scoring issue affected about 70 schools in 33 districts.

"There is no impact to the statewide results," according to an email from state spokeswoman Sara Gast. The impact on individual schools' scores, however, is unclear.

More than 1,000 of those incorrectly scored were in Shelby County Schools, according to an email from Superintendent Dorsey Hopson to school board members on Friday. Metro Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools also were affected, as well as the state-run Achievement School District.

Statewide, approximately 1,700 of the tests tallied incorrectly, once corrected, changed the score, possibly affecting whether a student was proficient on the assessment. About 600,000 tests were taken in the 2016-17 school year.

"I don’t think they can write it off and say it was just a few students," SCS board member Chris Caldwell said. "They owe it to every student to get to the bottom of it and correct anything that needs to be corrected."

The tests that were scored incorrectly were in three subjects: English I, English II and Integrated Math II.

Teachers also are affected. TVAAS scores, which are based on student test results and factor into teacher evaluations, will be reworked for 230 educators statewide because of the changed test scores. 

A statement from Tennessee Education Association spokesman Jim Wrye said the organization will be looking into "all aspects of last spring’s testing." 

"We’ve been hearing for months from teachers across the state about growing TNReady concerns, from mistakes in the instruction booklets to huge shifts in the state’s statistical estimates (TVAAS) for teachers," Wrye said. "This makes the fourth year in a row where major problems have surfaced in a system where there are a lot of high-stakes consequences for students, teachers and schools based on test scores. How do we know this is the full extent of the problem?"

TNReady tests are administered and scored by a third-party vendor, Questar Assessment. 

"Questar has now correctly re-scored these tests, and they are processing new score reports for those students, which we will distribute to districts," Gast's email said.

She also forwarded a statement from Questar.

"Questar takes responsibility for and apologizes for this scoring error," the statement from Chief Operating Officer Brad Baumgartner said. "We are putting in additional steps in our processes to prevent any future occurrence. We are in the process of producing revised reports and committed to doing so as quickly as possible."

In addition to the scoring errors, almost 1,700 teachers in 62 districts were affected by the state having incorrect classroom rosters. Those rosters are used to assign student tests to teachers.

The state said about 900 of those teachers might see changes in their overall TVAAS score. About 240 of those teachers are in Nashville, Gast said.

"The rest are distributed throughout the state, generally in pretty small numbers," Gast said. District and school TVAAS composites are not affected by the roster issue.

The issues, Gast said, are due to the vendor incorrectly updating its scanning software. The software issues also caused the delay of test results for report cards, the department said in June. 

Students across the state took the year-end tests in the spring. The tests factor into students' individual grades and are part of how the state holds schools and districts accountable. 

The state has been rolling out test results over the last few months. School-by-school test score data in grades 3-8 has yet to be released. The Commercial Appeal obtained SCS high school results through a records request, but statewide they have not been released publicly.

This is the first year students in grades 3-8 have taken the TNready test after the state's previous vendor failed to launch an online test for the state. The vendor was then unable to deliver to districts testing materials for elementary and middle school grades.

Only high schools were able to take the test.

The state fired that vendor, Measurement Inc., shortly after the issues. It hired Questar Assessment last summer under a two-year, $30 million per year contract.

Keith Williams, executive director of the Memphis Shelby County Education Association, said the new issue with Questar "challenges the validity of the test."

"I’ve lost pretty much all confidence in this statewide testing system," Williams said.

Tikeila Rucker, president of the United Education Association of Shelby County, agreed the validity of the test should be questioned, and the scores should not count toward teachers' evaluations.

"I really don’t understand who’s being held accountable for these actions," she said.

Gast said the state is working with Questar to make sure these issues don't arise again.

"Though we have reported over 99 percent of grade 3-8 and EOC (end of course) score data correctly, we need to be at 100 percent accuracy," she said. "We hold our vendor and ourselves to the highest standard of delivery because that is what educators, students and families in Tennessee expect and deserve."

Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.

Reach Jason Gonzales at jagonzales@tennessean.com.

Memphis area

Districts with incorrect scoring of tests

  • Achievement School District
  • Shelby County Schools
  • Collierville Schools

Districts with issues tied to classroom rosters

  • Achievement School District
  • Shelby County Schools
  • Bartlett City Schools
  • Collierville Schools
  • Germantown Municipal School District

Nashville area

Districts with incorrect scoring of tests

  • Clarksville-Montgomery County School System
  • Metro Nashville Public Schools
  • Rutherford County Schools
  • Sumner County Schools

Districts with issues tied to classroom rosters

  • Clarksville-Montgomery County School System
  • Lebanon Special School District
  • Metro Nashville Public Schools
  • Murfreesboro City Schools
  • Rutherford County Schools
  • Williamson County Schools

Knoxville area

Districts with incorrect scoring of tests

  • Anderson County Schools
  • Cocke County Schools
  • Knox County Schools
  • Maryville City Schools
  • Roane County Schools
  • Union County Schools

Districts with issues tied to classroom rosters

  • Alcoa City Schools
  • Anderson County Schools
  • Blount County Schools
  • Cocke County Schools
  • Grainger County Schools
  • Knox County Schools
  • Loudon County Schools
  • Maryville City Schools
  • Sevier County Schools