It was a banner headline: Tennessee “cuts ties” with its TNReady testing contractor after repeated delays and failed attempts to administer the test online – or even with paper and pencil.
Testing our students online is a good plan. But it has to work, and state officials are probably right to drop the $108 million dollar contract with Measurement Inc. before we get any deeper than the $1.6 million we’ve already paid.
But this isn’t the first time Tennessee has had contractor trouble with new programs.
Remember TEDS, the Tennessee Eligibility Determination System that was to result in a new TennCare application website? That was a $35.7 million contract with Northrop Grumman that started in December 2012 and still was not ready in early 2015 when the headline read: “State officials decide to cut ties with TennCare computer vendor.”
Six months later, state officials said they also were overhauling an “unhelpful” helpline that was supposed to offer a human connection to help people wade through the complexities of getting help with TennCare. This time, we were terminating a $31 million contract with Cognosante LLC, and spending another $56 million for a do-over contract with Automated Health Systems.