Credit: iStockphoto.com

Credit: iStockphoto.com

Update: This article was updated on Nov. four to include activity by the Country Board of Education .

The State Board of Education on Wednesday voted to penalize the Educational Testing Service, the visitor administering the state's standardized testing program, $three.1 million for delivering the scores and reports on the new Smarter Balanced tests late. The land board canonical the recommendation of the California Department of Didactics afterward niggling discussion and two comments from the public.

The penalty equals about 4 percent of the $83 1000000 contract that the state signed with ETS for 2014-xv. The company tin can ask the lath to reconsider the penalisation if information technology has evidence that its deportment didn't crusade the breach of  contract. ETS has non commented on the penalisation.

Final spring, ETS oversaw the new online tests aligned to the Common Core Land Standards in math and English arts for about iii 1000000 students in grades 3 through viii and grade xi. Districts reported that the administration overall went well, with few serious technical glitches among more 1,000 districts and charter schools.

However, ETS was late in providing districts with paper copies of individual student reports for mailing abode to parents within 8 weeks of the completion of testing, which occurred in most districts in mid-June, according to a study in the Nov state lath agenda. It was too late in completing a pocket-size percentage of scores to districts, which in turn held up the release of the final data file of the statewide results to the Department of Instruction,

The section had planned to release the statewide results in early August. That deadline was pushed back a month. Reports to parents weren't mailed out until well into September, in some cases too late for discussions with parents on Dorsum to Schoolhouse nights.

Lee Angela Reid, representing the Clan of California Schoolhouse Administrators, told the country lath  that the late results "created defoliation at the local level" and a perception amid parents of a lack of transparency. School districts were wrongly blamed for the trouble, she said.

Stating that he backed the proposed penalisation, Doug McRae, a retired executive from Monterey who oversaw Yard-12 standardized tests and has closely watched rollout of the Smarter Balanced tests, said, "It'south been standard operating process in the industry to penalize a contractor for not making deadlines for returning results."

Keric Ashley, deputy superintendent of Public Instruction, told the board that he has discussed the issues with ETS and is confident that the company will meet the contract'due south deadlines next year. He said that he expects the department will release the statewide results from the leap 2022 testing for every school and district in mid to late August next year. ETS' contract for next year calls for submitting the students' scores to districts within four weeks, so that teachers can review the results before the start of school.

Under the terms of the contract, the country was obligated to pay ninety percentage of ETS' charges every bit they are billed, but could withhold ten pct – $8.3 million – until the work was completed. Then the section would verify that ETS met the conditions of the contract. The Department of Education proposes to pay $5.2 million of the remaining money but non $iii.1 million because of the contract violations.

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