After a year of botched standardized testing, the state announced today its intention to award Questar a contract to administer this upcoming school year's assessment.
"Questar has recent experience developing a large-scale test thoughtfully and urgently," said Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen.
The state also announced Wednesday its plan to gradually implement online testing over the next three years. This upcoming school year students in grades 3-8 will take paper and pencil assessments, and high schools will have the option to use online testing.
The state began looking for a testing vendor in late April after McQueen decided to sever the state's $108 million contract with Measurement Inc., the vendor that developed TNReady, the test that replaced the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.
In April McQueen also announced that testing would be suspended for the remainder of the school year for elementary and middle school students.
State officials quickly awarded an emergency contract to Pearson to grade the remainder of the TNReady assessments following the decision to end the contract with Measurement Inc., and announced they would select another company to handle the state's standardized testing by the first of July.
McQueen said she believes Questar is the right decision, as the Tennessee Department of Education remains committed to developing "assessments that are meaningful and measure what our students truly know and understand."
Questar has implemented large-scale assessments in four other states: Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi and New York.
In Wednesday's announcement the state also noted that Questar has experience administering a large-scale test in the timeframe similar to the one facing Tennessee. In 2015 Questar began working with Mississippi in July to develop the assessment and was able to administer it to students on a high school block schedule by the late fall, according to the state.
The inaugural year for TNReady was plagued with problems, which the state blames on Measurement Inc. The two-part test was designed to be taken online, but due to glitches with the online platform, the state decided in February to return to paper and pencil testing.
Hamilton County schools had to delay part one testing twice waiting for the tests to arrive, and McQueen decided to cancel part two of the test after learning districts wouldn't receive the materials in time to start testing as scheduled.
"We believe that districts have exceeded their responsibility and obligation to wait for grade 3-8 materials," McQueen said in April.
The state plans to provide the Hamilton County Department of Education with information about how students in grades 3-8 performed on part one of TNReady this fall, but that information will be used only for informational purposes and scores will not be attached, McQueen said.
The test high school students took will also be graded and returned to the district, but these scores will not be used to evaluate teachers, students or schools, according to the state.
See tomorrow's Times Free Press for the full story.