Dive Brief:
- Nearly 800 students in Florida's Pasco County had state math tests thrown out because proctors issued the wrong calculators.
- The exams were supposed to make up 30% of a student's final grade in algebra I, algebra II, and geometry, but since independent validity assessments of all exams won't be completed in time for report cards, the exams won't count toward this year's grades and likely won't have to be re-taken.
- This has been a tough year for Florida testing. A handful of other districts experienced the calculator issue, along with cyberattacks and other malfunctions causing hiccups last month.
Dive Insight:
While the calculator issue isn't so much a computer or digital glitch, it does show how precarious testing can be. Getting things right can be incredibly difficult, and while the computer malfunctions are often blamed on the state, contractors, or inadequate infrastructure, the calculator errors are on the individual schools.
Regardless of who is to blame, issues with exams have raised questions about the breakneck pace toward high-stakes testing accountability.
"They should have used this year as an experimental year, but they decided to move ahead in a way that would see the experimental year — the so-called baseline development year — as a true assessment year, and that was a mistake," Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told the Tampa Bay Times.