STAAR Testing Goes South on First Day
STAAR testing for students in grades 3-12 has been suspended for the first day due to unforeseen technical difficulties.
According to a press release from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), officials advised districts using online tests to suspend the first day of STAAR testing due to outages and other technical issues being reported across the state.
“We understand the frustration this has caused students, parents, teachers, and administrators. What happened today is completely unacceptable. ETS, the testing vendor, experienced problems with their database system, which are in the process of being corrected. The 2021 online administration of STAAR will be ETS’s last for the State of Texas. Beginning next school year, Cambium Assessment will be taking over these critical testing functions to ensure that users have a seamless online testing experience moving forward.
Public school districts throughout Texas were notified today that students taking the online version of the 2021 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness online tests who were having problems connecting to the test should put down their (virtual) pencils.
Students who didn t have problems were advised to continue to take the test. The online problems did not extend to those students who chose to take the STAAR test in person.
“We understand the frustration this has caused students, parents, teachers, and administrators,” the TEA said in its statement. “What happened today is completely unacceptable.”
This isn t the first time there have been problems with the online STAAR test. What adds to the problem this year is that because of the ongoing pandemic, so many students opted to go on line rather than show up on a school campus.
Widespread technical difficulties on Tuesday prevented thousands of Texas students from completing the first day of state-mandated standardized testing, including in Austin and surrounding school districts.
The Texas Education Agency advised school districts encountering these technical problems to suspend testing for the day, while districts without problems were told to continue with administration of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Districts were advised if they were having issues that they should stop online testing for the day while the vendor works to resolve these problems, reads a statement from the agency s student assessment division. Online testing will resume tomorrow.
Statewide issues reported with online STAAR testing system
This school year, the STAAR tests are being administered on paper, online, or a combination of the two. Author: Jozelyn Escobedo (WFAA) Updated: 12:19 PM CDT April 6, 2021
DALLAS
School districts across Texas reported outages Tuesday morning with the online STAAR testing platform.
In a written statement, the Texas Education Agency said the three STAAR tests affected were Grade 4 writing, Grade 7 writing, and English I. Some districts sent an email to parents around 10 a.m., informing them about the problems with the online system.
Tuesday is the first of five days that students were eligible to take one of these three tests online, the agency said. The TEA told districts if they were having issues that they should stop online testing for the day. Online testing will resume Wednesday, officials said.
Several Houston-area school districts report problems with online STAAR testing click2houston.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from click2houston.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.