Tennessee auditors may have recently put out a rotten review of how Questar Assessment, Inc. handled TNReady, but that is reportedly not discouraging company officials.
According to the Chattanooga-based WRCBtv.com, Questar officials want the job again.
Specifically, they want a new state contract to continue overseeing the same service in the fall. They will bid for it, the website reported.
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, the TNReady online student assessment tests had login delays, slow servers, and software bugs, according to an audit Tennessee Comptrollers released.
As reported, last year Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said TNReady “has had several hiccups” and that criticism of it “was earned.”
Auditors, however, went into more detail in their report.
“The first signs of trouble began on April 16, 2018 and continued through the end of the month,” auditors said in a press release.
“Auditors determined that many of these issues occurred primarily because of Questar Assessment, Inc’s performance and updates to the student assessment system. Auditors also found the Department of Education’s oversight of test administration fell short of expectations.”
Over the course of the audit, the department and Questar worked constantly to address the issues that caused or contributed to the spring 2018 testing problems, according to auditors.
On Oct. 1 Questar and the department signed a contract amendment introducing new requirements and accountability measures for Questar. The department also made adjustments to improve its contract management, a press release said.
Comptrollers attached a document to their audit with more than 1,700 anonymous comments about TNReady from teachers around the state.
One comment said “teachers should have their manuals before the day of the test.”
Another said “teachers who actually taught TNReady classes had to search for directions.”
One teacher said “no one took time to show us the system or print the manuals, our guidance department did a horrible job of preparing the staff.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
