Florida Education Department Takes Steps to Help Online Tests Run Better This Year

(TNS) — The Florida Department of Education has been working hard in recent months to develop measures to prevent computer testing glitches from plaguing this year's state testing.

The state has been working with the computer testing provider, the American Institute for Research (AIR), to make sure the testing site is secure and that confusing testing steps have been eliminated and corrected.

Last year, hackers infiltrated the testing servers, causing glitches statewide for some students who were taking the new Florida Standards Assessments. Some students lost their work and had to retake the exams.

School superintendents across the state, including Marion's George Tomyn, asked the state not to use the results at all for the 2014-15 school year. Though the state did use the test results to administer school grades, State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart worked with districts to make sure the testing had as little impact on school districts as possible.

Janet Weldon, Marion's director of guidance and testing, said the district's computer technology team has been working diligently to make sure new testing computers, purchased last summer, are running properly.

"We are prepared and ready to go," said Weldon, adding that, for the first time, fourth-graders will be taking their language arts test on computer.

Weldon said though some testing is currently ongoing, the bulk of the testing will begin the week of April 11.

Weldon also said the state has informed school districts that many new steps have been added in hopes of preventing testing nightmares this time around.

Alix Miller, a state Department of Education spokeswoman, released a summary of the state's response to improving this year's computer testing:

• Cybersecurity: AIR upgraded computer defenses so the system does not slow to a crawl, causing students to lose tests.
• Delete warning: Since many students accidentally lost their tests last year, they will now receive a warning box before a large amount of text is deleted.
• Response restoration procedures: AIR made changes to enable students to view and restore previous versions of their responses during testing.
• Unauthorized progression: There were instances last year when students accidentally moved to the next test session before they completed the first session. To keep this from happening, AIR removed the ability for students to move on to the next session without approval.

"This is not an exhaustive list of improvements, but we hope that it does serve as a reassurance that we take very seriously the concerns expressed last year and that we have remedied the issues that caused them," state officials said in a prepared statement.

State officials also noted that despite best efforts, a minimal number of students may encounter disruptions or technical issues that are beyond the control of the state or testing administrator. They also said that in recent months, all districts have been administering other types of computerized tests and districts should be even better prepared for this year's testing.

Testing resources can be found on the FSA Portal at www.fsassessments.org.

©2016 the Ocala Star-Banner (Ocala, Fla.), distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.