The firm checking whether Florida’s new state test is valid is meeting with South Florida school districts Wednesday.
The state hired Alpine Testing Solutions after lawmakers raised questions about whether the new Florida Standards Assessments results should count.
Many students had long waits or couldn’t access the Florida Standards Assessments when they tried to log on to the test this spring. Others were kicked out in the middle of the exam.
Test vendor American Institutes for Research took the blame, admitting system updates twice caused problems accessing the exam.
In a separate attack, hackers clogged test servers for a short time.
That’s why Florida lawmakers required the state to hire Alpine Testing Solutions to make sure the test results weren’t compromised.
Miami-Dade school officials said they’ll talk about what happened with testing in their schools. But they mostly expect to hear what Alpine has learned so far.
Alpine has until Sept. 1 to complete its review. If found valid, the test results will determine school, district and teacher ratings.
And one Central Florida leader is asking the state to scrap the new exam. Seminole County schools superintendent Walt Griffin says Florida should use the pencil-and-paper Iowa Test and SAT instead.
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