(Seguin) – It was a much smoother day for students taking the online version of STAAR test across the Lone Star State. Most students use the paper version of the test, but a growing number of students were slated to take the test online this week.
Tuesday’s online testing was problematic. Educational Testing Services, or ETS, administers the test on behalf of the TEA, and it had a number glitches on Tuesday. The problems caused students to be kicked out of testing programs, caused slow load times, or it prevented students from actually submitting their answers.
Seguin ISD officials reported a much better day on Wednesday, with no issues reported for the online test takers.
Seguin ISD Chief Communications Officer Sean Hoffmann says that’s good news considering that many students will be back testing today.
“Testing does continue this week. We will be having English I testing on Thursday as well as some of our middle school testing and writing which is a result of not being able to take it on Tuesday due to those connectivity issues that seem to stem from TEA and from the test administrator throughout the state of Texas,” said Hoffmann.
Hoffmann says the technical difficulties left students and school districts across the state frustrated. He says luckily students were able to pick up where they left off or at least were given the chance to tackle the test for the very first time.
“With the focus of the online testing, we have students that realize that the STAAR test is a high stakes test, and they are going to do everything they can to do their best. They have been preparing for it and know that they have to apply themselves and there is a lot of frustration for our students when they are pumped up to take this exam that the state mandates and they are not able to because they can’t connect, or another example is (Tuesday) having fourth and seventh graders in the middle of their online essay and then they get logged out. As adults, we get frustrated when our technology does not work and to have this happen to our students who again have prepared for this and really focused on it, it’s a point of frustration but we are hopeful that we’ve beat that at this point,” said Hoffmann.
The Texas Education Agency reports that this will be the last time that testing vendor ETS will administer the online test. Beginning next year, Cambium Assessment will be taking over the testing functions.