Tennessee’s Switch Back To Paper Tests Wasn’t As Simple As It Sounds

The Tennessee Department of Education says it has shipped a million test booklets to schools over the last two weeks after abandoning computer-based exams for the year. And even paper tests have glitches.

First there was the printing. The testing company — Measurement Inc. — knew it would need a few backup paper copies, but not a million. Most districts have now received the materials, according to a TDOE spokesperson. In some cases, they were delivered directly to the schools’ doorstep. But for some, the boxes still arrived a few days late — forcing another delay. Schools can’t just unpack the tests and hand them out. Each test packet has to be checked first. 

Then there’s the issue of calculators. There was no need with the new computer-based test, which had a calculator built in. So districts are either having to go out and spend thousands of dollars on calculators
like Dickson County did, or stagger testing schedules.

“We don’t want elementary, middle and high schools to all take the math test on the same day, and there’s a very practical reason for that,” says Metro Schools spokesman Joe Bass. “They all need to use calculators, and we don’t have enough for them to share.”

State officials are apologizing to schools administrators who are passing the sentiment along to parents and teachers. But some school leaders say they’re losing goodwill for the new test with each hiccup.

Ravi Gupta, co-founder of RePublic Charter Schools, says he supports a new test more aligned with Common Core, but he has advocated
scrapping this year’s test and focusing on 2017.

“A bunch of parents, kids and teachers are incredibly frustrated and losing motivation and buy-in for this assessment by the day,” he says.