Nevada settles with Common Core test maker for $1.3 million

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada has reached a nearly $1.3 million settlement with the test maker blamed for widespread technical problems last spring that prohibited most of the state's students from finishing the required Common Core-aligned tests, officials said Monday.

New Hampshire-based Measured Progress will refund the amount in cash and services to the state's Department of Education, the Nevada attorney general said.

Breach of contract notices with the company and the test creators, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, were filed in April, when technical glitches also halted testing in Montana and North Dakota.

The issue became such a logistical problem that the three states offered an out to schools that couldn't or wouldn't finish the standardized test. That raised an unprecedented issue with the U.S. Department of Education's mandate for schools to test at least 95 percent of all students.

The mandatory assessment is tied to millions in federal funding and officials haven't said what, if any, penalties will be handed down.

Nevada, which was the most severely impacted among the three states, had a contract with Measured Progress for last year's test that cost about $2.7 million. The settlement reached on Aug. 20 indicates that Nevada will now pay about $789,021 less, or a total of about $1.9 million for the contract, and the state will also be given a science testing program worth $510,000.

Measured Progress acknowledged that Nevada had an unsuccessful testing experience, but the new agreement with the state, which resolves the issue indefinitely, also points fingers at Smarter Balanced. The settlement notes Measured Progress relied on a fully functional base program from Smarter Balanced.

In a statement, Measured Progress also said the settlement was agreed upon "mutually and cordially" and the science program will be provided to Nevada middle schools as a sign of continued goodwill.

Meanwhile, no settlement with Smarter Balanced has been reached, although the consortium has said it was commissioning two independent studies to understand last school year's debacle. Nevada's contract with the consortium, which could not immediately be reached for comment, was worth $1.3 million.

Judy Osgood, a Nevada Department of Education spokeswoman, said Smarter Balanced had informed the states that it was studying the quality and performance of the open source delivery system used by Measured Progress. There is another study to determine the validity of the scores on the tests, which were completed by just a third of Nevada students.

The system glitches may have compromised what was supposed to be a controlled testing experience, given that students had trouble logging into and with disruptions during the test.

"It is looking at the test scores, checking to see if the issues affected student test scores," Osgood said. "Some kids experienced a lot of frustrations, even if they were able to get through it."

The Measured Progress settlement doesn't include Montana and North Dakota, which had their systems largely restored so students could test. Those states have said they have been in talks with their attorneys general over possible legal action and Montana's superintendent has also previously said the state may sue the test developers to cover any federal penalties handed down.