In what is becoming an unwelcome rite of spring, state tests were scrambled by computer glitches Wednesday as students in the city and throughout the state tried in vain to log on.
“A lot of kids are having panic attacks,” said Kaliris Salas, president of the Community Education Council in Manhattan’s District 4. “I'm getting messages from people in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Far Rockaway all dealing with this problem.”
State officials acknowledged “technical challenges” with the math exam and said they had called on the vendor, NWEA, to address the problems.
“[The state education department] is actively monitoring the situation to ensure sufficient support is provided to schools that may require it,” agency spokesperson J.P. O’Hare said in a statement.
State officials said schools can pause or delay testing before the testing window closes on May 15.
This is the second consecutive year that tech problems have disrupted the exams. Last year, state officials also laid blame squarely on the education technology company NWEA.
"Once again, students and educators were left scrambling because the state failed in its responsibility to hold its vendors and consultants accountable," Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said. "The UFT is talking with state officials so children and school communities are not penalized for a mess others made."
Simona Beattie, a spokesperson for NWEA, said that the company is investigating the problem and working hard to address it by Thursday.
"We have directed all available internal resources toward finding the cause and resolving the issue as soon as possible,” she said. "We sincerely apologize for the disruption this has caused to those schools who were impacted today." She added that testing started earlier this month with no issues, and 2 million tests have been submitted so far across the state.
The technical problems with the state exams come amid a growing parent movement pushing back against technology in schools.
Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels withdrew a proposal for an artificial intelligence-focused school earlier this week. Some parents called for a moratorium on the new technology altogether. A school phone ban has drawn praise from educators, parents and students themselves.
“We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on computers, on different platforms, at a time when we're looking to cut other kinds of resources to the [public school] system,” Salas said. “So we really have to think comprehensively about whether doing an assessment on a computer is valuable for our youngest learners.”
Students in the third through eighth grades are required to take the state tests in math and English language arts each spring as a measure of their overall progress. In recent years, students have been required to take the test on a computer, though there are exceptions for some students with disabilities or language needs. Parents can also opt their children out of the tests altogether.
Ahead of the shift to computer-only state tests, some parents raised concerns about their children’s typing proficiency, while others expressed skepticism after experiencing repeated technical problems during remote learning.
City education officials referred questions to the state.
"We’re aware of the issues with the state testing platform today and assessing the impact to our schools,” city Department of Education spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said. “We are in close communication with the New York State Education Department about next steps for schools and families.”
