Students will resume Alaska\u2019s standardized test today after a fiber optic glitch more than 2,000 miles away interrupted them earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Phil Loseby, Juneau School District\u2019s coordinator of assessments and program evaluation, said administrators initially feared someone internally caused Tuesday\u2019s technical glitch. They quickly learned the problem started outside of Juneau.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire world could not access Kansas University\u2019s website,\u201d Loseby said.<\/p>\n
Kansas University is the site where Alaska Measures of Progress (AMP) electronic exams are generated by the Achievement and Assessment Institute.<\/p>\n
The first day for electronic AMP testing was Tuesday, Loseby said, but not all schools and students started on the same day. There is a five-week window for taking the exam. Only an estimated 150 students in grades third through 10th were testing when an error screen appeared.<\/p>\n
According to information the testing facility released to testing sites in Alaska, a cut to a fiber optic cable near the University of Kansas caused the interruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really an unfortunate event,\u201d Loseby said. \u201cIt\u2019s not related to the assessment or the vendor; it was a construction related accident, but it was incredibly ill-timed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ill-timing Loseby referred to speaks to more than just the fact that children were actively testing across the state. This is only the second year Alaska schools have used the AMP test and already the Alaska Superintendents Association has recommended the state abandon the standardized measure. The education department uses $25 million of allocated funds to pay for the assessment institute\u2019s services as part of a five-year contract.<\/p>\n
What happened Tuesday isn\u2019t a reflection of the institute providing the exam, Loseby said, and testing will resume today.<\/p>\n
When testing resumes, students will be able to continue where they left off because of a district protocol that saves data as students work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you use something like technology (these interruptions) are a fact of life,\u201d Loseby said. \u201cYou have to roll with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Paula Ann Solis at 523-2272 or paula.solis@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students will resume Alaska\u2019s standardized test today after a fiber optic glitch more than 2,000 miles away interrupted them earlier this week. Phil Loseby, Juneau School District\u2019s coordinator of assessments and program evaluation, said administrators initially feared someone internally caused Tuesday\u2019s technical glitch. They quickly learned the problem started outside of Juneau. \u201cThe entire world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19306"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}