Schools turn to online testing for Standards of Learning

Melissa Mitchem, a second-year teacher at Falling Creek Elementary School, has been eager for her fifth-graders to take their Standards of Learning tests online.

This spring, she'll get her wish.

Falling Creek will start online testing as the Chesterfield County school system continues its implementation of Web-based testing at the elementary school level.

Last year, five of the county's 38 elementary schools administered some testing online. This year, 29 elementary schools will administer at least one subject test online. All high and middle school SOL testing will be conducted online. Testing begins Wednesday and runs through August.

Chesterfield is ahead of Richmond and the counties of Hanover and Henrico -- and ahead of the state -- in moving from pencil-and-paper testing to online assessments.

And Virginia is leading the way in online testing. The Department of Education estimates that 1.7 million online tests will be administered this spring, Shelley Loving-Ryder, assistant superintendent for the Division of Student Assessment and School Improvement, said in a recent report to the Virginia Board of Education. That total is up from 1.4 million last spring.

"That's an extraordinary number," she said. "Virginia has become a national leader in online testing."

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All SOL tests are available online, except the English writing tests. The state Department of Education is taking steps to move them to the Web.

Some school systems are limiting online testing to SOLs for state accreditation. Others also are administering student-progress assessments at all levels in the core subjects of science, math and history.

When the state Department of Education launched the Web-based-testing initiative in 2000, 15 school systems participated. By 2005, all school systems were administering tests online.

Every year since the department began the initiative, it has provided $50,000 per school system, plus $26,000 for each school, to improve technology infrastructure.

The online testing program began in response to the need to get results back quickly for end-of-course tests for high schools, Loving-Ryder said. About 98 percent of those assessments are administered online, she said.

"We love the online testing because we get the SOLs results back so quickly," said Eric Jones, director of high school education for Henrico's schools. "It allows us to re-teach the material to students so they get another opportunity to test before they leave for the summer."

Because so few end-of-course tests in high schools still are administered in the paper-and-pencil format, the Department of Education is considering a new policy in which traditional versions of tests would be available only as an accommodation, Loving-Ryder said.

"As we move toward more and more online testing, and that is the expectation, this will become an issue in the lower grades as well," she said.

Statewide, about 61 percent of middle school tests are conducted online, as are 12 percent at elementary schools, Loving-Ryder said. This spring, those percentages will increase up to 7 percent at the elementary school level and up to 21 percent at the middle school level, she said.

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Online testing doesn't come without its technical problems.

Two years ago, major glitches kept about 9,000 Virginia students from finishing their online assessments in separate testing days because the company administering the tests, Pearson Educational Measurement, experienced system shutdowns.

Last year, tests were administered without major problems, said Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education.

Chesterfield's schools have had a case or two of individual students being bumped from the system midtest and having to restart, Technology Director Lynda V. Gillespie said.

In 2005 in Henrico, about 200 students taking SOL tests were affected when the word "pimp" was created as a randomly generated security code and the testing software froze.

"We haven't had any technical issues since then," Jones said.

Other challenges for school systems include not having enough computers and having to interrupt instruction during testing.

Renee Williams, assistant superintendent for instruction for the Prince George County school system, said schools must use all computers for testing.

"Since classes are taught in some of the computer labs, depending on the testing schedule, these classes must be held in another classroom," she said.

Carole O'Brien, director of guidance, testing and research for Hanover's schools, said online testing involves a lot of planning.

Schools need back-up plans for system failures, and they also need to be able to handle students who require more time to take a test or need to make up a test; those who finish early; and those who are absent.

"If the plan is in place months prior to testing," O'Brien said, "the benefits to students far outweigh the challenge of time and effort it takes to make the plan."

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or .

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