The Tennessee Department of Education has terminated its contract with the vendor of TNReady tests, Measurement Inc.
High school testing was given the green light to continue testing, but testing for grades 3-8 has been suspended for the rest of the school year.
The announcement came Wednesday afternoon after the test supplier, Measurement Inc., said it missed the deadline to deliver testing materials.
Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said in a statement Wednesday that MI shifted their deadline for the third time in one month to Wednesday, April 27, which was missed.
In total, 2 million documents have not been shipped yet. All school districts had not received portions of the testing materials needed, and very few had complete sets of tests for subjects in grades 3-8.
Henry Sherich, the vendor president, said officials with the Department of Education were the ones to set the Wednesday deadline.
He said have 400,000 tests and answer booklets left to ship. Sherich said those have been set to ship from their warehouse Saturday.
School districts have been expected to receive the tests Monday, May 2. Those with the Department of Education have announced they will not test past May 10.
"We know the transition to TNReady has presented unexpected challenges. These are challenges for educators, schools districts students and we will not ask them to further disrupt their end of year schedules," said McQueen.
McQueen said since federal law requires state testing, the department has been in constant contact with the US Department of Education to work together on the state's unique circumstances.
She said they will follow federal law to the best of their ability and continue to work with the department to administer the test to all students.
If a district has received complete sets of materials they were given the option to administer the test within the state's testing timeframe.
Metro Nashville Schools decided not to test grades 3-8. The Franklin Special School District also decided not to administer Part 2 of the state assessment, even in the grades where we have received all testing materials.
Governor Bill Haslam released the following statement in response to the contract termination:
“I share along with many teachers, students and parents a profound frustration with the lack of performance by the state’s education testing vendor and the subsequent challenges that failure has created. Annual assessments are essential to measuring our progress and providing the information we need to make improvements. Over the past few years, Tennessee has seen momentum in education, and we’re proud of the hard work of our teachers and students. The failure of the testing vendor to deliver the tests and meet its own obligations does not take away from the fact that Tennessee has created our own, higher standards, we have an improved assessment fully aligned with those standards, and we remain committed going forward to measuring student performance fairly and ensuring accountability for those results.”
