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Ohio Online Testing Leaves Schools Cautiously Optimistic

This is a totally different story from last spring, when schools administering their reading and mathematics tests online were beset by glitch after glitch.

(TNS) -- What a difference a year makes.

Many Ohio schools started their state proficiency testing in the past two weeks. According to the Ohio Department of Education, Ohio students had taken 948,000 tests online as of Thursday morning, and no major glitches or incidents had been reported. Central Ohio districts that tested students online reported few problems.

“We’ve had some hiccups, but for the most part, very seamless, very smooth,” said Jamie Lusher, chief academic officer for Grandview Heights schools. “Obviously that’s a direct reflection of our staff.”

This is a totally different story from last spring, when schools administering their reading and mathematics tests online were beset by glitch after glitch. Students experienced long wait times before they could start, some couldn’t log in, and some were booted off midtest more than once.

This year, posts to a statewide computer message board for school technology specialists show that, besides widespread problems for a couple of hours on April 7, the system has been running well.

All Westerville students started testing online this year. Scott Ebbrecht, Westerville schools’ director of alternative education and assessment, attributes the lack of trouble to having tried out online testing in a few grades before expanding it to all. Plus, the district made sure that its network was up to snuff and everyone was trained, students and staff alike.

Grandview Heights was testing third, fourth- and fifth-graders in English skills last week. Lusher said a few students ran into a problem during the test’s writing portion because they composed text in the notes section but were not able to transfer it to the finished essay before time elapsed. It boiled down to a time-management issue, but working on a computer made everything harder.

But “overall, we feel really good about the implementation,” Lusher said. “Obviously, we don’t feel very good about giving up the instructional time for assessments, but we are trying to be as seamless as possible so we can ... get back to learning.”

Although Worthington schools aren’t having tech problems, many students are nonetheless struggling with online tests, said Chief Academic Officer Jennifer Wene. Younger kids have trouble typing their essays in. Older students must read long passages on their screens, but they say they would prefer to read on paper and make notes and highlight, she said.

Finding a balance between paper and online would work better, Wene said.

“On the math tests where they have to show their work — let’s let them do that on paper instead of having to use all the math symbols and numbers on the keyboard, which even as a adult I find awkward and clunky,” Wene said in an email.

School officials say some of last spring’s technical difficulties and confusion resulted from two companies making the state’s proficiency tests, forcing schools to switch between two online interfaces.

The 2014-15 school year was the only time that Ohio used English and math tests created by PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. Science and social-studies tests were created by AIR — the American Institutes for Research.

The state switched to AIR tests for all subjects after last summer, when the Ohio legislature canceled the state’s contract with PARCC.

The Ohio Department of Education expects districts to receive this spring’s test results by June 30; results for students’ families are expected to be available by late July.

©2016 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.