More Than 9,000 TNReady Tests Scored Incorrectly

NASHVILLE, TN — Roughly 9,400 TNReady achievement tests were scored incorrectly by a state vendor, the Tennessee Department of Education reported late Friday afternoon.

The state said some versions of the end of course exams in English I and II and Integrated Math II were coded incorrectly by testing vendor Questar, giving roughly 8,000 students a lower score than they actually earned and 1,400 a higher score. Of those 9,400, 1,700 will see a change in their final overall assessment.

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More than 1,000 of the incorrectly-marked tests were in Shelby County, with errors also reported in Nashville, Knoxville and the state-administered Achievement School District. The state education department emphasized that the mistakes were made on a statistically insignificant number of tests, but that may be cold comfort to hundreds of teachers whose evaluations were affected by the error.

The state said evaluations for 230 teachers will be reworked in light of the mistake. Another 900 teachers may have received incorrect evaluation scores because another vendor did not properly link student results with the correct educator.

Questar reported delays in scoring the end-of-course tests — which are now part of a students' final grade and, thus, can ultimately determine if a student passes a class or even graduates — this summer and apparently incorrectly coded its scanning software during the fix of that delay.

The state has been rolling out overall score metrics piecemeal as they become available throughout the fall.

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