After a rocky year of standardized testing, Tennessee is starting fresh with Questar, a large-scale test maker that will begin administering the state’s assessments for grades 3-11 in the upcoming school year.
Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced Wednesday that the state plans to award a two-year contract to the Minneapolis-based company, with an option to extend the contract for up to five years, at a cost of about $30 million annually.
The state also is not racing back into online testing. Having seen its testing program grind to a halt this year due to a sweeping failed rollout of its TNReady assessment, Tennessee will phase in online testing over a three-year period, McQueen said.
For the upcoming school year, the state will administer paper-and-pencil tests for grades 3-8. For high school end-of-course exams, the department will work with Questar to provide an online option “if both schools and testing platform demonstrate early proof of successful online administration,” according to a news release. Districts also will have the option to choose paper-based assessments for high school students.
“Students, teachers and parents deserve a better testing experience in Tennessee, and we believe today’s announcement is another step in the right direction,” McQueen said in the release.
The choice of Questar gives the Minneapolis company only months to work with before the first testing happens in Tennessee. No time can be wasted: some high school students will need an assessment by as soon as November, and the federal government requires annual testing.
McQueen said Questar has a track record for working on a short timeline. With only a few snafus, the company successfully administered New York’s assessments for grades 3-8 to about 1.3 million students after winning the contract last summer. It also developed the Mississippi annual assessment on a timeline similar to Tennessee’s in 2015.
“Questar has recent experience developing a large-scale test thoughtfully and urgently,” McQueen said. “We believe it is the right partner to collaborate with … to develop assessments that are meaningful and measure what our students truly know and understand.”
In addition, Questar will have a foundation on which to work. A State Department of Education team began crafting next year’s assessment earlier this spring after McQueen fired Measurement Inc., a small North Carolina-based company that state officials blamed for the botched rollout of its TNReady assessment for math and English, as well as its science and social studies TCAPs.
For a clearer picture of what went wrong with TNReady, check out a Chalkbeat analysis of emails that reveal months of missteps leading up to the failed online testing debut.
The choice of Questar was not surprising. The department wanted a vendor who has had success developing statewide online assessments. Few vendors have done that; even fewer have done so successfully. Measurement Inc. had more than 40 years of experience but had never rolled out a statewide assessment program on the scale requested by Tennessee.
Questar will be charged with developing assessments for grades 3-8 in math, English, science and social studies, with an eye on transitioning the state assessments online.
During an afternoon conference call with reporters, McQueen said the decision to walk back into online testing instead of running has nothing to do with Questar but more to do with Tennesseans’ comfort level with computerized testing in the wake of TNReady’s online failure. The state will begin the shift with its older students, who have more digital experience.
Initial reaction to this week’s announcement focused on the state’s new timeline for online testing.
“It is encouraging to learn that the department has listened to feedback from educators and district leaders and will be phasing in the transition to online testing more slowly and deliberately,” said a statement from the Professional Educators of Tennessee.
State officials said they expect to finalize its contract with Questar next week. Earlier this spring, the department hired Questar as the state’s vendor for an optional second-grade assessment.
The State Department of Education used an emergency procurement process to select Questar for its biggest contract, working on an expedited timeline to find a qualified company in time to develop next year’s test. Before deciding, state education officials had conversations with multiple vendors, including Educational Testing Services, Data Recognition Corp., Measured Progress, Pearson, ACT and Houghton Mifflin.
State officials emphasized that they did their homework, having “engaged with the vendor’s references as well as independently reaching out to the other states that have contracted with Questar,” according to the release. “Independently verifying the vendor’s work was a priority throughout the vetting process.”
The relationship with Measurement Inc., which was selected before McQueen came on board, was mostly troubled. McQueen waited to pull the plug on the contract, though, in deference to students and teachers, she told Chalkbeat last week.
The Tennessee Office of General Services selected Measurement Inc. out of five interested vendors in 2014, awarding the company a $108 million contract. Prior to 2014, Tennessee contracted with Pearson for most of its end-of-year tests. The state created an emergency contract with Pearson, worth about $18.5 million, a month after firing Measurement Inc.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information.
The timeline below tracks the twists and turns of Tennessee’s testing journey.
*Chalkbeat reporters Grace Tatter and Laura Faith Kebede contributed to this report.