What a whirlwind the past 24 hours have been at the Capitol!  Legislators were eager to go home.  Generally, legislative sessions last from mid-January through late April or May of each year.  Bless their hearts, all this complaining about TNReady has really TESTED their patience.  They wanted this testing problem off their plate so they could go home and not be bombarded with complaining constituents.

Without going into a whole government lesson, here's what happened last night:  The House of Representative  (99 members) were pissed. They tacked some amendments onto a bill to take away the power from TNReady.  One of those amendments was an Opt-Out Amendment that would have let parents legally refuse the test for their children without penalty just like so many other states have.  Oh, it was beautiful!  Behold its splendor!

Alas, that amendment was not meant to be, because the meany-pants Senate members rejected it, plus they rejected some other fantastic amendments that would have gotten rid of TVAAS, forced paper & pencil only tests in the future, and done an investigation into testing problems.  The House members kinda backed the Senate into a corner with, "well, if you're not gonna approve this TNReady fix-it bill, then we won't approve some stuff that you need us to approve like the state budget." So, the Senate (33 members) had to compromise.  Unfortnately, one of the things that got cut was the Opt-Out bill.  

But, here's what did get approved:  TNReady will not harm any student, teacher, or school for 2017-18.  Yay!  

​Day 9 of TN READY testing and guess what????
We have YET another excuse as to why the computers crashed almost state wide. 
TODAY it was a fiber optic cable that was cut somewhere between Atlanta and Nashville. ONE. FIBER. OPTIC. CABLE. That is one important cable that has all of the important TN Ready tests floating along inside of it. 
We're pretty good at geography, but we just don't see how ONE FIBER OPTIC CABLE running from Atlanta to Nashville would interrupt testing in Memphis or Bristol. 
That's one important cable.   And might we add, that's one wonderful dump truck!!!

Momma bears have searched the internet today to see how many other people and businesses have been affected by this one important cable.  Nope, nothing.  We haven't seen any other news on it. 

Every single article says what happened according to telecommunications experts but not one has pinpointed the name of the company or the area the "cutting" happened. Not one person who is posting on all the social media sites we follow has commented about their internet being down. 

But maybe......it's because their internet is out?  Hahaha!

But surely if there was such a wide spread internet outage in our state someone other than the TDOE would be reporting it?  So obviously this is just the important standardized testing cable and magically no one else was affected.  It almost feels like the Department of Education has a magic test excuse wheel.

DOE Person 1: "Oh no! The reports are coming in from parts of the state, we are in crash mode again!" 
DOE Person 2: "We can't tell the tax paying public that this testing company is incompetent we must bring out the wheel."
All the DOE People Together: "THE WHEEL???" 
DOE Person 2: " Yes, The wheel of Excuses!" 

Momma Bear side bar:  WHAT??   HUH????  You unknowing Momma Bears might ask, What is the wheel of excuses? It's how they come up with today's excuse. --- spin the wheel and find out what today's excuse will be!
Doe Person 1: Gives the Wheel a big spin
All the DOE People watch in total amazement.
Doe Person 1: "What will it be today: Hacking? The Eclipse? Russians?, a hurricane? (in Tennessee, in April???{probably not but at this point I think the DOE thinks we will believe ANYTHING) no none of those it is slowing down and today excuse is a cut cable!!!!"
DOE Person 2:  "Yes that's it a cut cable. Hurry tweet it out. Blame it on some poor cable guy who obviously didn't call 811 and he didn't know he was supposed to look before he dug:

Things that make you go HMMMMM??????
Why would Questar be utilizing a cable between Atlanta and Nashville when their computer servers are in Minnesota?  It seems as if the magic time for all these test crashing reports is about 10 am eastern time. That is about the time that the central time zone students start logging on. As someone posted this week, maybe the eastern Tennesseans' would be able to finish if all the central time zone people just waited a couple hours!

The question of the day today from all across the state is this????
If we aren't counting any of these tests against any of our kids, or our teachers, or our schools then why the heck are our kids still being tested? That my dear momma bears is the million dollar question. 

More mess...
We also got an alarming report that around 900 middle schoolers were given the wrong grade level tests.  How frustrating. 

We've continued to receive reports of weary over-tested students wasting time in empty classrooms or gyms while other students test, of students shown movies because there was no lessons planned because they were supposed to be testing, testing codes not working, high school rosters being wiped out by a Questar software update, and sadly, reports of children crying in frustration.  

The best thing you can do is to contact your weary legislator and complain.  Complain loudly.  They have to listen.  Election time will soon be here.  

We'll leave you with this fantastic tweet from a candidate for Governor, Representative Craig Fitzhugh:

Parents and teachers continue to send us messages about how the testing is going.  What a headache for students and teachers!  

Let's start with the online tests that the TN Department of Education is now claiming is working smoothly.  Hmmm...  Then why did the Questar backlog time increase over the weekend when no testing was happening?  One tech-savvy school employee who needs to be anonymous to keep her job told us this:

"The time now given by Questar for the recovery of student data from a local machine is 72 hours. I get that they are swamped but if it takes intervention by an actual Questar technician to compare / apply the sent cache file, and if you have that many cache files sent, Questar should be adding staff to allow for timely processing. Do they really think asking a student to wait 72 hours to complete a test is acceptable? If their selling point is that the test can run without constant connection to the testing server (except for students requiring a read-aloud accommodation, of course), they must have a more efficient way to deal with recovery file processing. A student should not have to pause and come back at another time to finish (except in extreme cases that are well documented). That's not allowed on a paper test; it shouldn't be allowed on an online test.  And by the way, if these problems were as limited as they are trying to make people believe in the media, why would the backlog be that deep? They are so quick to share stats on numbers of test sessions completed, let's see stats on the number of recovery files submitted and processed and how many of those recoveries were successful."

We heard that one school's online testing was so messed up that after their faculty meeting, all the teachers had to manually enter the recovery login and student login for all of their computers and students... over 900 machines. One frustrated teacher said, "It took forever!"  Here's the kicker:  Those tests they were trying to recover?  Yep, you guessed it... teachers had to re-administer those tests to students again this week.  

One mom sadly reported that her youngest child who has been sick with Crohns, and had to have part of his colon removed this year, still had to take the EOC.  He missed 42 days of class and got an incomplete.  But he still had to take the EOC!  

One teacher who has to remain anonymous said the testing directions alone are a "huge cause for concern!! They are written poorly, have mistakes, and some of them make no sense.... If they can’t get the test directions right, there is no telling what the test is like!"

Pity the poor 5th graders in this school:  "Yesterday, at least 75 fifth grade students only had five minutes to get and eat their lunch because they had issues administering the test."

We've received quite a few messages from parents who are getting push-back from opting-out/refusing.  Homeschool parents, in particular, are really frustrated with this system.  Having to bring their child to test, only to find out that the testing dates have been rescheduled due to the testing problems.  Homeschool parents want to know how to opt-out of these unhelpful tests, too.  Honestly, it is the same way as public school parents.  You just refuse.  We have a section on our website about Refusing.  (Click the "Choose To Refuse" tab).

What's going on at the Capitol? I heard scores aren't going to count?
There is much misinformation going around, but here's what we understand to be the case:  The conferencing committee between the House and Senate are working on a compromise.  The Governor still has to sign it.  Once approved and signed, your local public school boards will get to determine if the TNReady scores will be used on your child's report cards (so yes, that won't happen until after the testing is over).  Unfortunately, the scores will still count for teachers.  TnEdReport has a great analogy with fruit and pie that will help you understand the crazy way these tests are being used to evaluate teachers with a secret formula called TVAAS.  We highly suggest you read that blog and follow Andy Spears for insightful, accurate education news.  

TVAAAAASHIT*#&!#^#%$@!^*
Pardon our French.  That just plain sucks.  Those poor teachers seem to take all the blame and get no respect.   Legislators are eager to go home, since legislative session is ending.  This is throwing a bone to the loudest dog and escaping through the gate.  Hey, it is tough being a legislator and working from January to April and earning about the same salary as a teacher does!  If we sound passive-aggressive with that last comment, then you get our drift.  We're fed up with politicians treating teachers poorly.  We are hopeful that election-time will be a rude awakening for them.  

So what can I do?
We generally end our blogs with a call to action.  This week's action:   VOTE. 
Or even better:   RUN for political office.
If you're not that brave:  SUPPORT candidates who support public schools, students, and teachers.  

When Amy Cate retired last year from Knox County Schools, she told reporter Betty Bean , "I thought that we were the civil rights movement for teachers and students in Knox County.” “We all walked into the meeting together, holding hands. We were scared to death – would we lose our jobs? But we were thrilled at all the red. It was a movement. It was a time when teachers were fed up. We knew we were being used and abused in a way that was not right. Given my experience with sales and management, I knew that you don’t treat people that way, not in the real world, and certainly not in government, financed with state and local and federal taxpayers’ money.”

A year later and Cate is right. TNReady still ain't ready and teachers are growing more and more frustrated at being used by TDOE to inflict tortuous testing on children.

Tuesday's online testing was definitely a breach of security and provided some students a possible advantage by being able to come back the next day and continue working. It didn't affect those who could complete test but just couldn't submit; however, there were many students who simply couldn't test anymore. Because no one knew how long the outage would last, those students, at least in theory, could have had far more time than their peers who completed their work the day before. ​

Another one of our readers told us: There is NO WAY under the sun that what happened yesterday did not violate multiple assessment protocols. Ask for a copy of the state's assessment protocols that they send to districts. Then merge that with what you know. At the very least dozens oftesting irregularities occurred as students could not submit tests. There is no way that every assessment will be checked to make sure that it is in its original form. I simply laugh at the spin. The problem is that teachers are not allowed to comment on the test as they risk immediate termination. And kids likely don't have the entire story. The gag order on teachers is a convenient way to prevent the story from being told. State legislatures need to have an independent audit of what happened....

So, we tried to get a copy of this year's state testing manual which is normally online for public view. At least, it has been on the TDOE website in past years. But this year, the test manual comes with a warning to educators not to share with the public. It is now considered to be a secure document.

​Well, we got the testing protocols anyway—thanks to a lawyer friend in Nashville. 

So, the question remains…

​Were some students allowed to take the same subpart twice in violation of TNReady security protocols? 

We think so.

During her testimony to the Joint Committee, Dr. McQueen explained that the test downloaded onto each computer so students were not interrupted when the "deliberate attack" occurred. The only time students should have realized there was a problem was at the end of the test period when they were unable to submit their answers. She said that all students were given the same 85 minute time frame to complete their test. They simply were unable to submit it. She further stated that when the system was back up & running, students or THEIR TEACHERS should have just hit submit. Say What???? Since when are teachers allowed to touch a student's computer and hit submit?

In any event, our readers are reporting that when students were locked out of submitting their essay test online, they were dismissed from the testing room and allowed to return either later that day or the next day. After returning to the testing environment, a variety of scenarios took place as laid out below. And from what we can tell, these different scenarios could have happened to students at the same school in the same testing room.  

• Some students found their essays saved but the computer would only allow them to submit their answer.
• Others found their essays saved and could make edits but they were told not to change their answers.
• Others found part of their essays missing and were given time to finish and make edits to their answers. 
• Others found their essays saved and were given another full 85 minutes to review & edit their answers

From my 9th grader “we were told not to make changes but the system would have allowed it if kids wanted to” The whole test is tainted, imo, and the scores are meaningless at this point.

They left the testing area for several hours including lunch so yes I’d say kids could definitely research and ask friends for help if they really wanted to.

My daughter's essay was halfway completed on Monday, and then the test was cancelled. Yesterday, her work from the day before had been saved and she wrote the second half. Then, she could not submit it. So what McQueen is saying is false.

Collierville parents reported that not all their students took the test yesterday, so kids who took it today heard the prompt from the students who took it (but could not turn it in) the day before

My 9th grader finished his essay and was not able to submit it. However 4 kids in his room were able to submit theirs. But no one else’s would go through and they did not return to the testing area.

My 8th grader said that when they tried to submit it showed as not submitted. When they got to school today some of the essays showed a status of completed and those students could only hit the submit button. Other students the essay did not have completed as a status and technically they could have made changes but were told not to and told to submit it just like it was.

That is true for my daughter, they could only return to hit 'submit'. I do wonder though, what if someone else hit a key or something blanked out or timed out...

My 9th grade son answered a couple of multiple choice questions then wrote an essay. He could not submit his answers so his class was dismissed from testing. The next day, he was given the test over again. His essay had saved to his laptop so he had another 85 minutes the next day to review it and make changes. He said some of his classmates could not change their answers but others could. ​​

Right now, the General Assembly is still in session meaning, we have a chance for a legislative remedy for the problems with the TNReady testing. It is possible to submit last-minute amendments to existing education bills moving through the House and Senate to lessen the damage of standardized testing to our students.

Here is our primer on legislation so you will know what to ask for when you contact your state legislators:

A piece of legislation has two sides. The House version and the Senate version. These bills must match. So when a change is made in the house, it must then be reflected and passed in the Senate. And vice-versa. And NONE of this is final until the governor signs it into law. So Momma Bears can jump up and down when some good ideas are introduced via amendment and passed. And you should thank lawmakers who are working hard to introduce these amendments. And who are speaking out, questioning the TDOE based on what they hear from constituents. But, remember that nothing has passed to the governor's desk yet. So don't get too excited.

We are aware of two amended bills: 

HB1981 / SB1623
This bill has a conference committee report added to it. Both the House and Senate agreed to following:

The assessment provider shall reimburse the LEA or LEAs in which the misadministration occurred for any exam that does not result in a reportable score for the student

The assessment provider shall provide an opportunity for any student impacted by the misadministration to take the assessment again at no charge.

Each local board of education may choose the percentage within the range of zero percent (0%) to fifteen percent (15%) that scores from the TNReady assessments administered in the 2017-2018 school year shall count on a student's final grade for the spring semester.

Student performance and student growth data from the TNReady assessments administered in the 2017-2018 school year shall not be used to assign a letter grade to a school pursuant to this section.

Student performance and student growth data from the TNReady assessments administered in the 2017-2018 school year shall not be used to identify a school as a priority school or to assign a school to the achievement school district.

For the 2017-2018 school year, LEAs shall not base employment termination and compensation decisions for teachers on data generated by statewide assessments administered in the 2017-2018 school year. 


HB1109 / SB0987
This bill contains amendments to try and stop the test from being given online. It allows LEA's to choose online or paper tests. It also tries to remove scores from grades, GPA's or teacher evaluations by giving teachers, students and school districts a choice to use the scores. And it states "The Commissioner of Education shall pursue all legal remedies available to the state pursuant to the terms of any contract for the administration of state assessments for any problems that occur in the administration of state assessments that prevent students from taking, completing, or receiving scores from a state assessment."

What You Can Do NOW!!!!!!

Neither of these amendments will stop testing for this year or address the invalidity or the harm to our students. Nor will they call for an investigation into testing irregularity.

If you want those things, you need to

Contact your state legislators and demand they pass legislation this week that includes everything!!

Contact the State Board of Education & Blow up their Facebook page!!

Email the Governor at bill.haslam@tn.gov & Hit him up on Facebook too!!

Call McQueen at (615) 741-8457

Today, the new online version of TNReady failed miserably again. We received reports from all over the state that students were again unable to log on or were unable to submit their answers at the end of the testing session.

What does this mean?

It means that our students, schools, and LEAs have wasted their precious resources on a foolish venture that fails every single year!!! 

Students are sitting in school cafeterias waiting on the state to fix test glitches; going nowhere just like Tennessee's flat NAEP scores this year. 

Students are reporting they are not allowed to use their chromebooks and laptops until this testing issue has been resolved. They are locked out of online assignments and unable to access their online class materials. 

Students are giving up three weeks of meaningful instruction time because teachers are not allowed to introduce any new curriculum once testing has begun.

Students are spending their class time learning a carefully choreographed routine called "we have to share computers" instead of learning their lessons.

And let's not forget the teachers and school administrators who have spent late nights and weekends preparing for TNReady. How much time was wasted on copious, often confusing instructions for a test that never happened? 

All this effort, year after year, and the same results—another testing failure from TDOE.

TDOE sure knows how to pass the buck. Last time, they blamed Measurement, Inc. for the testing failure. This time, TDOE Commissioner Candice McQueen is blaming an outside attack. She sent out the following message to Tennessee's school district superintendents. 

In response to the testing insanity, Representatives Lamberth and Faison are expected to bring emergency proposals to the house floor this afternoon at 3:00pm CST. The House Chamber erupted in applause as they vowed this session will not end until the legislature addressed TNReady. Look for HB1109 on today's consent calendar in the House floor session. It is expected to have several amendments that will consider eliminating all online testing, canceling this year's testing, defunding TNReady, and prohibiting the use of scores in student grades, teacher evaluations & the new letter grade ratings for LEAs. You can watch at this link.

On behalf of Momma Bears everywhere, we would like to thank Rep. Lamberth and Rep. Faison for their efforts to hold the TDOE accountable for this testing fiasco. We hope all of State Legislators are supportive of their actions. We are also excited to see Rep. Zachary's video update where he announces his sponsorship of the new amendments. And we would like to thank the first Gubernatorial candidate to speak out on the issue, Diane Black for her support of Tennessee teachers & students. 

Contact your legislators now and support these amendments.

Then, spread the word and ask other to support these amendments. Let's end this once & for all. Our kids deserve an education that is not wasted on inept and abusive testing regimes. 

Then, call Commissioner McQueen and tell her what you think about TNReady ​(615) 741-8457

We know!! It's insane to expect that this year's TNReady testing would be any different from past years. But Commissioner McQueen PROMISED that this year's test would be different. We have a new testing vendor, better preparations, yada yada yada...

Yeah, well, it looks like Questar's technical glitches in New York last week were a foreboding prediction of what was to come this week in Tennessee. Sure enough, Tennessee students also experienced log-on issues when the new online TNReady testing came to a screeching halt this morning.

TDOE downplayed the problem claiming that there were just some technical glitches and not a statewide crash. TDOE also claimed that glitches were resolved and testing resumed. However, several school districts were notifying parents and the public that TNReady testing would not continue today.

We received reports from our readers all over the state:

"Haywood County Schools suspended State Testing today at HHS, SHILC, & ESIS due to issues with state online testing."

"Lakeland’s 'indefinitely suspended' because of internet problems with the host."

"Shelby County. Problems logging in. Some students waited an hour for log in to work."

"Williamson County didn’t test. Fiasco!"

"'system crash' no testing in Cheatham county."

"Wilson CO. Down. Paper test begin tomorrow."
​
"Sumner County-received an email stating that testing was canceled today due to a “glitch” in the system. Testing will now start tomorrow and Wednesday instead."

"Rutherford County...all testing cancelled for today due to system issues"

"Knox county - kids at the middle school were to start today. 'Due to technical difficulties beyond our control, we have postponed tcap testing. We are awaiting direction from the state on how to proceed.'” 

"No testing at the L&N STEM Academy today in Knox Cty"

From Gresham Middle School in Knox County: "Due to technical difficulties beyond our control, we have postponed TCAP testing. We are awaiting direction from the state on how to proceed."

And Williamson Strong is reporting:
​
"We've heard that at least 36 districts including WCS, MNPS, Knox County, Sumner County, Rutherford County, Cumberland County, Cannon County, Washington County, Wilson County, Franklin County, Chester County, and Bartlett have had problems with online testing today."

News of the testing debacle even reached Capitol Hill. During the Joint Committee on Government Operations hearing, Rep. Hardaway mentioned that Commissioner McQueen has been absent from the University of Tennessee Trustee Board meetings.

It is indeed time for us to act. 

While TDOE and Commissioner McQueen will no doubt shrug off the failure to launch as a minor glitch that was quickly fixed, we know better. We know from our readers that

—A big red message popped up on screens saying that the server crashed.

—Some kids spent 30 minutes trying to log on and only had 10 minutes to complete the test. We know those scores will be used against our teachers and our schools next year. 

—At least one student was able to log on at a middle Tennessee high school to complete the Chemistry EOC. But his classmates were not. The Chemistry EOC is scheduled to be administered to them in two weeks. So, what's to stop him from telling his classmates what was on the test?

—It was pandemonium in one classroom as proctors struggled to time each student starting with when their log in was successful. Multiple timers, multiple starts & stops meant craziness affecting performance. 

And finally, we know that teachers have been threatened up one side and down the other that they could lose their license, be fired, or something else equally horrible if they so much as make one little mistake while proctoring TNReady. We know that because they signed forms acknowledging what would happen to them.

But Questar, TDOE's testing company, makes a mistake that disrupts testing statewide and it is no big deal. Until the scores are used in teacher evaluations and to grade our school systems. Then, it will be a big deal. A big deal for teachers and a big deal for school districts.

​Rep. Mitchell is right. It's time to act. And the time is now. 

And you can start by contacting your state representative and Commissioner Candice McQueen.