Since Tennessee educators have experienced only one year in the five-year history of its TNReady assessment tests in which the process went as scheduled, it’s important all students are tested – and tested in person – this spring.
It’s doubly important because many students have been remotely learning since the coronavirus pandemic hit last spring, and the vast majority of education experts say remote learning has not been as effective as learning face to face in a classroom setting.
The tests were canceled in light of the virus crisis last spring, and some states want to cancel comprehensive student testing again this year.
It’s critical that Tennessee not do that both because no tests were taken last year and because of the state’s rocky testing history the past five years.
* In the 2015-2016 school year, because of printing problems experienced by vendor Measurement Inc. and glitches with the online platform, testing for students in grades 3-8 – in the initial year of TNReady tests – was canceled, and no scores from students in grades K-8 were counted.