February 9, 2016
Yesterday, the Tennessee Department of Education announced the suspension of online testing
and the switching of the Tennessee Ready assessments to a paper and pencil administration.
Measurement Incorporated (MI), the Tennessee contractor, is very disappointed by this decision
which was due to computer server issues that prevented some students from logging into the
MIST online system on the first day of test administration. However, 19,720 students
successfully completed the assessments online on day one. Although MI believes that the server
overload problem has been corrected, the State made the decision to discontinue online
assessments.
MI has used the MIST online assessment system successfully since 2010. The numbers of
student tests administered during the last three calendar years are: 2013 = 600,967; 2014 =
626,758; and 2015 = 2,153,529. In addition to Tennessee students, the assessments were for
state departments of education in Michigan, Utah, and Connecticut. In January of this year,
Tennessee students took over 1,115,000 online practice assessments in preparation for the
current assessment phase. As the Department of Education announcement indicated, MI has
continued to make enhancements to the system throughout the practice testing process, and the
problems on Monday were a result of improper network utilization, not MIST functionality.
MI is now moving as quickly as possible to get the assessments printed, packaged, and shipped
as directed by the Department of Education. It always has been and will continue to be our goal
to work with the Department of Education to provide the students and educators of Tennessee
with an outstanding assessment program.
Henry H. Scherich, Ph.D., President