WESTERN NEW YORK – Computer-based testing resumed Thursday for students in 5th and 8th grades as the New York State Education Department continues to deal with issues surrounding its English Language Arts assessments.
Those tests, which are administered through Questar, were scheduled to be given to elementary and middle school students this week. But problems with the Computer-Based Testing (CBT) system on Tuesday created headaches for thousands of students.
New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said Questar’s database servers ran out of free memory, causing nearly 7,000 students statewide to be unable to submit their tests.
The state signed a $44 million contract with Questar to develop its Math and ELA assessments in 2015. It was a five-year deal.
This marks the second year in a row that there have been issues with CBTs. In 2018, some students were unable to log into the system.
The state’s contract with Questar allows for each school district to decide whether it wants to administer its tests through computers or by paper.
State education officials say more than a quarter of districts statewide are opting to use computer-based testing.
Leave a Reply