Computer glitches undermine school tests, officials waive results
The Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to waive implications of the recent state Milestones tests for some students.
The results were undermined by computer glitches, many of them on the morning of April 19, when a “logjam” stalled some test takers.
“There were some schools that had intermittent issues,” said Melissa Fincher, director of testing for the Georgia Department of Education. Results were transmitted, but some kids may not have performed at their best because of the disruption, she said, so it wasn’t fair to them to use the scores.
She said 7 percent of test “sessions” had been affected as of Friday. Each student in grades three through eight has nine sessions. Close to half the nearly 1 million students in that age group took online exams this year, the largest in state history.
The school board voted to void the results for use in decisions about promoting students to the next grade. It only affects students in grades three, five and eight.
Read more later at myAJC.com.
RELATED
About the Author
Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.
