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In Testimony, State Education Officials Have Few Answers About Suspected Testing Cyberattack

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen says that the problem-solving questions on TNReady will require classroom teachers to rethink their own tests and quizzes to prepare students. Credit: TN Photo Services
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Tennessee education officials got a grilling Wednesday from state lawmakers about the suspected cyberattack that shut down standardized testing earlier this week.

But officials say they’re not sure who would have tried to hack the TNReady tests — or why.

Description: --break->” height=”3″ src=”file://localhost/Users/blakefarmer/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_image002.png” width=”3″ /> </p> <p>State Education Commissioner Candice McQueen apologized publicly for the interruption but said she would not resign. She also resisted calls to give up on computerized testing and switch back to all-paper tests.</p> <p>“We’re in an online transition, one of only 10 states that has not made this transition,” she said. “Every state that has made the transition has had a challenge of one kind or another, and when you have this number of students across the state taking tests, you have to allot for time to recover and then to move forward.”</p> <p>State officials say no student data was compromised in the attack. They add that more than 150,000 testing sessions were completed on Wednesday, without incident.</p> <p>Tennessee wasn’t the only state affected by the attack on Questar, the firm that administers the TNReady test. Students from six other states were also taking exams, and Questar believes testing was affected in at least four of them: New York, Mississippi, Missouri and South Dakota.</p> <p>The company says it’s already been contacted by the FBI’s field office in Minnesota, where Questar is based, and the state plans to hire an outside firm to investigate the incident. The TBI could also be called in.</p> <p>But officials couldn’t offer much of an explanation for the attack, and that left state legislators frustrated. They noted that problems with TNReady go back four years and span two vendors. So some, such as Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, R-Lancaster, say they’re ready to put an end to computerized testing.</p> <p>“I just think it’s insanity, and this is not working. At all,” she said. “So, we want our money back is all I’ve got to say.”</p> <p>Questar is paid $30 million a year to administer TNReady. State officials say it’d cost an additional $11 million to switch to an all-paper format at this point.</p> <p>And the scores wouldn’t come in time to be included in students’ grades. Many lawmakers say, though, they’ve lost faith in TNReady and are prepared to throw out the results, either way.</p> <p>“Taking a test, a standardized test, is a very stressful experience for these children,” said state Rep. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis. “And for the test to malfunction, multiple times, I mean, that is unconscionable. It is an unfair stress to put on children that are already stressed out.”</p> <p>McQueen, however, says there’s no reason to distrust the test. Though lawmakers spent much of Wednesday’s hearing sharing first-hand accounts of how the outage had disrupted the testing, McQueen said the system should have saved all of their work and the results would be valid.</p> <p>She said there’s no reason not to use the data for evaluating students, teachers or schools.</p> <p>“We have issues with technology. I do. You do,” she said. “You have to be resilient and come back.” </p> <div class=

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Chas Sisk, Senior Editor

Chas joined WPLN in 2015 and became an editor in 2018. Previously, he covered state politics for Nashville Public Radio and The Tennessean, and he’s also reported on communities, politics and business for a variety of publications in Massachusetts, New York and Washington, D.C. Chas grew up in South Carolina and attended Columbia University, where he studied economics and journalism.

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