ISTEP errors create concern for other end-of-year priorities

The process was halted last week by technical issues and when testing resumed May 1 CTB/McGraw-Hill asked schools to decrease their daily test load to 50 percent of normal levels. That resulted in schools only testing one grade level at a time, instead of two.

Problems assessing and completing the online test led Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz to cancel testing on Monday and Tuesday. And the assessment window was extended, twice, through May 17. However, the longer testing window, according to Jane Wilhelmus, director of instruction/curriculum for the Warrick County School Corp., is cutting into other end-of-year research papers, assignments and tests. The last day for Warrick County schools is May 23.

“We’re closing in on the last few weeks of school and it is impacting a lot of different areas in our educational world,” Wilhelmus said. “We have other testing that needs to be done, research papers that computer labs are needed for and now we’re dedicating those labs to testing. It is throwing other aspects of our educational process off. It’s been a major disruption.”

At this point, Wilhelmus said it isn’t profitable to point fingers at whose to blame, and said she thinks the Department of Education and CTB/McGraw-Hill worked diligently together to solve the issues. However, scaling back 50 percent of the test load, Wilhelmus said some larger Warrick County schools may need more than the already extended days to complete testing.

A statement posted on the Indiana State Teachers Association Facebook page dated April 30 demanded assurances that the continual “fire/misfire” scenario occurring April 29-30 immediately be addressed and fixed. It went further to point out that through recent changes in the state law, ISTEP not only represents student proficiency, but also fuels A-F school grades from the Department of Education, individual teacher evaluations and sometimes teacher salary. ISTA held McGraw-Hill accountable in the statement for the “glitches” and emphasized the importance of a stress-free testing environment.

“McGraw has a history of having problems administering ISTEP, but this year the problem appears to be much more significant ... ISTA wants proof from state leadership that educators will not be harmed economically in any way from ISTEP data compiled during this testing period,” the Facebook post said.

From the first problems noticed on Monday morning, William Stein, director of technology for the MSD of Mount Vernon, said CTB/McGraw-Hill handled this situation poorly by first denying a problem even existed and then blaming the issue on the school’s local technology. From there, Stein said it is was a comedy of errors and amateurish fixes such as “reboot your computers” or “we added memory to the server.”

“We will get through this and in the end I have no doubt that Glenda Ritz and the DOE will hold McGraw-Hill CTB accountable for their epic failures,” he said.

Initially, it seemed information was delayed getting to school districts after the issues emerged Monday, said Angela Wannemuehler, director of curriculum, assessment and special programs for the Metropolitan School District of North Posey.

“The communications improved dramatically on Tuesday,” she said. “And there (was) also some confusion about which avenue to get the most current information. For instance, the real time link update was never updated, and there’s different websites and DOE links that you can go to try to get information, so there’s confusion about what’s the main one that they’re going to use to deliver information to us.”

Indiana’s four-year, $95 million contract with McGraw-Hill lasts through June 2014, and requires McGraw-Hill to provide “uninterrupted” computer availability every school day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the two weeks before each testing window, as well as for the entire testing window.

Daniel Sieger, McGraw-Hill vice president of communications, referenced a company statement dated May 1 in which McGraw-Hill “sincerely” apologized to Hoosier students, parents, teachers and Ritz for “this unfortunate situation.” Before the April 29 start date, The company said performance and loading tests were conducted on the system to simulate live school assessment scenarios. But McGraw-Hill said the simulations “did not fully anticipate the patterns of live student testing.” In efforts to fix the problems, system settings were adjusted and hardware was increased to improve performance. McGraw-Hill ensured no data was lost and students affected by the interruptions would be able to resume testing where they left off.

On Thursday, roughly 41 percent of the total expected ISTEP sessions were completed. In a May 2 statement, Ritz said she is committed to working with schools, students and parents to ensure they have the time needed to guarantee all Hoosier students have the opportunity to take a fair test.

Dan Altman, IDOE press secretary, said officials will need to look at test results before deciding if any will be invalidated, but the current focus is getting the test completed.