Testing of Minnesota's students to resume Thursday

Minnesota students will resume taking their standardized tests Thursday after having a day off because of repeat glitches in the state's new online testing system.

Pearson, the company hired to administer the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), said that it has made the fixes needed to prevent similar interruptions in a testing window now extended two days to May 12.

The company could be on the hook for damages under its $33.8 million contract with the state Department of Education, but the question of whether that's appropriate in this case has yet to be taken up by state officials, department spokesman Josh Collins said Wednesday.

"Our main priority is getting things up and running and making sure students and schools have a successful day testing tomorrow," he said.

Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius announced on Tuesday that the state was halting the test-taking after technical issues arose three days in the past week. On the first two days, students had difficulties logging onto the system. On the third, some were kicked out in the middle of their exams.

Stacey Gray Akyea, director of research, evaluation and assessment for the St. Paul School District, said there already is enough anxiety around testing. For a student to make his or her way to a computer lab, sign in and then get kicked out later, "that's very startling for kids," she said.

She backed the state's decision to put the testing on hold, and now will "wait and see" whether the troubles are fully resolved.

At this time of the testing season, about 29,000 students take the MCAs each day. On Tuesday, when this week's issues surfaced, about 19,000 were successful, leaving about 10,000 students with unexpected work left to do. Another 29,000 students then were idle on Wednesday.

Still, Collins said, the state is not giving up on Pearson.

"We're not looking at this as a lost cause — or that Pearson can't turn this around," he said. They've assured us they're taking the necessary steps, and we're going to be expecting a smooth system tomorrow."

One of the fixes this week involved putting in new protections against outside attempts to disrupt the system by overwhelming it with web traffic — an attack that took place Tuesday. No student data was accessed in the process, however, said JC Considine, a Pearson spokesman.

Now, districts are left to ponder their scheduling moves.